Day 4149 of the 7 day Bible verse challenge.

Isaiah 59:14 NIV

awakens to a wasteland

A land in which so much is so wasted and that by so many that daily you find you only feel but this growing ache inside your chest as you walk amongst this deepening mess that is being endlessly made by those who make the maze and yet always seem as if they know what they’re doing, where they’re going, who they’ve become. And perhaps they do as in fact I imagine many of them might. After all, why else would one go on living what isn’t a life unless they’ve come to decide that the death we see and too know awaits is an alright place for us to live in waste?

And that of every opportunity we’ve both been given already and still hopefully have awaiting.

Awaiting what?

Us to realize that this way of life that we’ve come to live and believe we love is nothing but a gross lack of the both. That we know increasingly little of life as within it we love what all it isn’t. That we thus know little too of love as we love that which is actually hate and hate then whatever love may still be. That we’ve thus neither seen nor heard nor even then begun to imagine whatever better might be, whatever it might help us to become.

A realization that cannot come because of what we have become which is numb, dumb, blind and boastful about it. A truth we see so easily as a quick drive down the street or another glance at a screen. And that because both of them will show the scene of things that are done which shouldn’t be. Both will help those with eyes to see that there’s shockingly little good to find. Both will inspire those with actual working minds to finally begin to consider what it is to realize that our way of life has left us not merely fallen but in fact fatally so.

And that because it doesn’t take a genius to know that no matter what anyone says, whatever anyone may dare try, the standing reality is that within this life the vast majority of people are lost inside this lie that has them laying down and rolling over and playing the patsy to every want, wish and other vanity known unto a failing humanity.

A truth witnessed by any who have the guts to notice the nonsense and a courage to call it what it is.

That being that it’s sin.

And thus too that it’s death. Yes, it takes someone with the heart of a lion and thus too the willingness to both roar and walk away to stand up for once and say that the way we’re living our lives within this world is only winning us increasing death thanks to all we do that ought not be done. And that list my friends it’s one that goes on and on and on as none of us seem to know when to stop wanting what cannot be a life when considered from the faith standing outside knocking on the doors of our hearts all but begging us to start reconsidering nearly all of what we’re doing.

Simply because pretty much all we’re doing is just calling God’s bluff in what is a betrayal so rough that billions daily refuse to even contemplate their coming to lose what isn’t a life.

A fact proven inside both what all we’ve all let inside and thus too the many things which haven’t so made it through.

Indeed, it seems a growing commonality amongst society to never stop to think about what we’re doing. We don’t think about what we’re finding nor what more we’re not. Don’t consider what we’re losing nor the consequences that such losses will find for us. Don’t talk about our flaws or failures as our friends don’t talk about theirs either. Rather we all just plunge into every new day doing the same old things such as denying our indifferences and making then some of the most worthless decisions without end.

No, the fact that the fall does not end but only seems always to quicken is a growing part of what lends to the very veracity of the Scriptures breathed for the self-proclaimed benefit of our learning from it and then moving on from it too.

Yes, this world is unknowingly proving the very legitimacy of God’s Word within all that they’re doing so willingly as to do it daily with a smile on their face and no love in their hearts.

And is that a harsh thing to say? Yeah.

Can anyone prove it isn’t true?

No.

Because, well, just look at what we do. Listen to what we say. Take a second to really consider that which is considered common and normal and acceptable amongst we these people. Honestly give a moment to seeking for honesty. Let yourself actually go looking for truth rather than either what you want it to be or even what the majority say it should be.

No, look for the real thing. Look for the honest thing. Look for the good thing.

I think you’ll be surprised how little of any of them you’ll find.

And why?

Because such things aren’t welcome here anymore. Rather we’ve come to all but vilify anything and anyone who doesn’t fit the mold. We’ve chosen to make sport of those who do something different, believe in something better. Why? Because better is hard. Better is scary. Better asks that we wager whatever is upon the hope of whatever we aren’t yet. Better is the mandatory loss of wherever and whoever we are as is willingly given unto our believing that we can be the better we’re not.

But yet so many here think they’re the best they can be already. Our society is drowning in such this depth of pride and vanity that we don’t have anymore eyes to see the insanity. Rather we think we’re winning at life. That we’re doing alright. That our minds aren’t muddied and our hands not soiled because of it. Indeed, there are great and growing many here who seem to honestly think they don’t know how to make a mistake.

And yet somehow everyone is still falling short of the glory of God and everything around us, within us even is falling apart because of that.

And sure, we can argue that. We can debate. We can deny it, a fact proven in that most folks do that very thing every single day. The vast majority of people within this place have taken this stance that seems daily to say that they legitimately like living this way even despite all the hate and hardship and hollowness we both see and sadly feel too.

Alas I think the feeling part is even beginning to fade thanks to our hearts having become increasingly stone-like inside chests lined with the gold and glamor of a world that clamors for only that which is considered common and commendable.

Like what you ask?

Dishonesty. Depravity. Darkness. Danger. Death.

Indeed, have you noticed our fascination with violence? Literally just had a fight program held on the white house lawn. Nearly every movie anymore is all about the kill count. We eat it up as if we too are Rome and thus not entertained by but carnage and gore. ‘Give us more’ we cry!

Why?

Because we don’t understand life. We don’t appreciate it. We’ve so lost our ability to grasp the value of it that we give ours over to doing things that make us feel horrible, or at least should. And yet that we so often don’t then defines the problem!

Again, just look around!

Our cities and towns are decaying right before our eyes. Our relationships are following in step. The willingness to even smile at a stranger seems anymore an open door to danger as they may take it wrong and think we’re up to something or want something or have something to say that odds are they don’t want to hear. Yes, we can’t even say certain words because they’re now considered all but grounds for declaring war.

And what’s hard is that they change all the time!

Who can keep up with all of this stuff that everyone around us wants?

We don’t even know what we want ourselves!

Proven in that we willingly buy every lie that sells as is held inside this world that wants for us only so distracted and indifferent that the desensitization and demoralization can continue unchallenged.

Yes, the devil wants us thinking that we are our best so that we don’t dare realize that we’ve stopped living our lives for everything that better still is. Rather he wants us hating one another, arguing about things that simply don’t matter, seeking endlessly for all of the ways and reasons to further divide our humanity. He wants us so removed from humility that we embrace further every day the swelling insanity seen already inside our welcoming unto our hearts, our minds, our lives such filth and foolishness as foul language and fornication.

Which are just a couple more things increasingly seen inside what we consider entertainment.

And we never manage to get our fill of it.

And that because we’ve all but emptied of morality, decency, self-control. Long gone are basically any concerns given to any of those things. In fact, all of those things are daily mocked and belittled in this world! We make fun of those who try to improve. We call toxic those who seek to better themselves. We consider detrimental to society those who decide to stand for something other than everything that everyone else is falling for.

One of our politicians even referring to a certain group as deplorable simply because they held a to a different opinion as to the best direction for a crumbling nation.

Because we don’t stop anymore. There is no guard on our mouths, no governor to our opinions, no willingness to want them either as it’s considered funny whenever people just let the truth of their wayward heart roll out for all to hear.

Yeah, that’s the life we like down here. It’s one in which those who do what’s considered normal and acceptable win the welcome and those who don’t are considered only losers who don’t belong.

A scene seen inside the story of Calvary and how we killed an innocent Man, cheering on His undue suffering, simply because we didn’t like that He lived a different kind of life not lost inside the darkness we’ve all continued to let in even ever since.

Why do we do this?

Why do we continue to just degrade and give way to the depths of darkness to which we’re so clearly sinking inside a world that’s stinking with all the death and decay that’s being all but demanded within the way we’ve come to love to live what is a life that’s but a war waged not inside but rather against any and all who have the unmitigated gall to ask we consider what we’re doing and why?

Why?

Because we don’t care to do otherwise. Because we’re okay with these kinds of lives. Because we don’t mind a little bit of mindlessness and immorality. In fact, we hate increasingly anything that asks that we use our minds to find something other than immorality as the apparently needed basis for basically everything we say and do.

Indeed, when’s the last time that you said or did something for any reason other than you wanted to or someone else wanted you to?

We don’t do anything but for those two reasons. It’s all either something we want to do, as is pretty much always chosen only because we’re all but frozen to thinking that our fun and feelings matter more than anything, or rather something that someone else all but demands from us for what are basically the same reasons.

It’s all because we’ve all been seasoned, conditioned, convinced to just go along as if the ultimate goal is actually to get along with all of those who continue ahead only along the wide path not only aimed at destruction but one arriving us there every day anymore.

Yes, we are literally watching the last days unfold in what is a world that is losing what little hold on every better hope that we may have had left to reach for, want for, learn from. All because we’ve become so dumb as to see no issues with our growing hatred of truth as is a fact so easy to prove as in this whole idea that we each have our own version thereof.

How can that work?

How can truth be something, mean something different to everyone? How can honesty be honestly appreciated by one and completely hated by another? Indeed, how is it that we can be filled with so much hate for some of our neighbors and yet claim we’re all about love and peace and hope?

Friends, where are love and peace and hope? Truly, has anyone seen them lately? Have any of us felt them lately? Or are not they all fading here inside this fog of a world gone wrong thanks to our all having all but given away to walking away from the very sum of everything that we were created to be and since then called to return toward?

Yes, why would Jesus have to walk amongst our mess bringing with Him a message of mercy and reconciliation if we didn’t need the mercy of being reconciled to that or they from whom we’d drifted?

Because we can’t realize the distance.

And that because we’re now so far from God that so too do most think Him so far from us as to perhaps not be there at all. And that belief brings with it this companion consideration as to an overall lack of consequences to be met in what are then actions that don’t really matter which only furthers this most friendly of idea that we really can, and as pride then considers justifiably should, do only whatever we want. That freedom means doing everything without limit or hindrance.

Again, that there is no cost nor consequence.

But friends, how can we still believe that when we’re, again, already reaping them?

For is not hatred a consequence of refusing kindness? Isn’t darkness a consequence of rejecting the light? Is not dishonesty a direct result of depravity asking that we despise honesty? Isn’t fear found only because we’ve lost our courage? Isn’t love worth more than just asking people to always agree with us and tell us that we’re doing right no matter what we do in life?

Is it loving to let those you love harm themselves?

Shouldn’t be. And yet that’s somehow the version we see every single day as inside every single day people all around us continue walking right beside us carrying this glaringly obvious downtroddenness that ought to inspire us to see if there’s something we could do to help.

But we don’t care about anyone else. We don’t care about ourselves. Rather we spend our every waking moment sleeping a million miles away from everything better that is now missing inside of this place in which truth isn’t welcome, modesty is made fun of, compassion is considered weakness, justice is basically a joke and thus righteousness stands still upon that same hill where He died just shaking His head and wondering why.

Why do we continue to refuse the healing we need if not because we’re so far gone that we can’t see that we can’t help ourselves?

And too because we don’t think we need any help as, well, the fog of failure and foolishness when all but forced inside what is a way of life given daily unto darkness, it does really well at preventing us from seeing all the problems we have and that we’re the ones to blame.

But friends, who else can we point to when we’re the only ones here? We’re the ones who’ve chosen to vilify the truth and replace it with each our own version. We’re the ones who mock those who try to live decent lives. We’re the ones who consider fools all those few who willingly lose out on all the fun and friendships made so easily as meeting in a bar where the goal is to get hammered so you can numb the pain for a couple hours. We’re the ones who stare at screens made specifically to show us things we like seeing, tell us things we want to hear, prophesy lies and convince us that whatever this is that we’re doing is somehow living a life.

It isn’t.

Rather we’re just losing one inside what’s a clear using one to do nothing of everything we should.

And no, I’m not saying that there is no good. Just saying that it’s pretty obvious that we’ve stopped looking for it because it’s getting harder and harder to find.

And why is that?

Because we continue to ask Him to only get out of our way so that we can continue to do all the things that cost Him His life on that cross that we can’t see is carved in the shape of you and me. That should have been us up there suffering in that kind of agony.

And yet we hate that truth so violently that still we refuse to simply agree to lose what is a way of life so very lost that, as this verse says, righteousness stands at a distance as the truth lies beaten and bloody in the streets having been continually betrayed by those who don’t see any life in living His way.

No, we see reason still in living our way despite so many things going wrong because of it.

Thankfully He’s told us that someday all will come to a knowledge of the truth that we’ve collectively come to hate, deny, ignore. I just hope we come to that knowledge while it can still save us rather than when it’s shown as only a movie made of the life we didn’t live before we’re turned away forever toward the chaos we’ve reaped in a life spent sowing only hatred and denial.

We will reap what we sow. But it will prove incredibly hard to even know what you’ve sown when you’ve, like most, grown so indifferent to everything decent that you realize not the descent you’ve taken away from life and truth and love and hope.

Yes, every eye will be opened.

Only question is have we the courage to open them now while we’ve still time to turn around from who we’ve become or will He who is the Truth, the Life, the Way we’ve all come to hate have to come and pry them open for us?

#LeaveNoSoulUntold