Day 4171 of the 7 day Bible verse challenge.

2 Corinthians 5:4 NIV

bears the burden of being

Said burden being borne beside the awareness that one day what it won’t be, thus meaning then that our being whatever we are will to cease to be at some point. And that on top of the daily realization that what we are are but beasts of burden within a life in which we’re tasked with trying, with surviving, with learning and growing and using the both to better our living of what are still, even despite all we know how to do and perhaps even enjoy doing, to eventually stop being whatever they are. And on top of that we’ve none of us any idea when.

Rather we all just wake up every morning and go about our personal typicalities in what are lives that have been whatever they’ve been allowed to be for however long we’ve let them be whatever they’ve become.

Which is, again, likely nothing more than a burden we bear as is borne inside the weights we carry of the woes we know and the wants we want more than the many known woes we’ve known in the place of the things we’d have preferred at the time. Such is this life! It’s this daily fight between what we hate and what we like as is fought inside of hearts that are themselves coming apart as we’re all being pulled in about a billion different directions thanks to all the dreams, desires, decisions and dilemmas both with which we’re faced and those too we chase.

And I think that it’s this constant chasing after that which we prefer as so often unequally blended with the facing of the more which we don’t that’s caused this life to become the burden that it is. For all of us, who were born into the sin that is selfishness as is marked by all such misplaced ideals as greed and gluttony and vanity and vitriol, we’d then highly prefer to spend out our every waking moment focused entirely on ourselves and our lives and the making of the both as comfortable and commendable as humanly possible.

And yet even then there’s still that.

It’s that we’re human. We are human beings. We are thus humans being whatever it is that humans are. We’re a people performing what’s but a part in a play. And this I say because we all know this life will end one day. The curtains will close. The applause will end, the cheers silence then. Everything we see be it lights on a stage or those on the highway as we drive alone through the joy of memories made or the guilt of regrets somehow chosen instead, it will all be gone.

And that perhaps before long as, again, none of us know when the show will end.

Just that it will.

Thus we’re being right now. We’re being whatever we are. What we are right now is what we’ve chosen to be. Granted, not every aspect of life here is a choice we’ve chosen for there are clearly a great many things that are forced upon us that we’d obviously have never chosen ourselves would we had had the choice to choose something else. It’s like illness or injury, the surprise loss of a job or the hailstorm that comes out of nowhere and obliterates your honda’s windshield.

There are plenty of things that happen within this place over which we haven’t a choice.

Even death.

We don’t get a say in that. We don’t get a vote as to if it happens, not even when. Rather it will come as but a surprise to many if not most. Sure, there are those who are given a more refined estimation as to the end of this vocation that is what we call being a human from those who are doctors who’ve seen their kind of situation before and know that odds are their life is now measured in weeks or months as opposed to the years and decades they’d imagined before the diagnosis came.

But still, the fact remains the same and that is that death comes for us all.

Meaning then that all of us have but so much time to do whatever it is that we’re here to before we’re gone and then can’t.

And it’s this search that’s haunted man for all of our time here. Nearly everyone has sought for the meaning of life as it seems we all simply understand that there has to some reason that here we stand. Yeah, there are those who believe that everything that is is only whatever it is thanks to sheer happenstance as happened upon a fading moment in the past in which all that wasn’t somehow exploded and over the course of millions of years managed to take all that blown up nothingness and create all of this that there now is.

That whole idea takes far more faith than I’ve ever been able to offer.

But still, even to them that believe that all of this became whatever it is thanks to a sudden bang blowing somehow into existence all that has since existed, so too have they enough curiosity as to why that which exists exists that they’ve created that story that allows for them to believe they’re here by what’s basically a cosmic accident and thus, being the product of nothingness that’s known for blowing up, not much really matters all that much because, hey, who knows but that everything won’t just blow up again?

And indeed, it seems as though there are a great and sadly growing many within this world that apparently share a similar outlook as to the purpose of life. That it’s their duty to enjoy as much as they can, deny themselves no delight, because, well, even they can’t escape the fact that death’s coming and so they seem to figure that they may as well live it up before it does. And that outlook has led many to living this life as if the purpose thereof is to party, to have fun, to feel good.

And they do make that version look good.

Alas, some of us can’t seem to so completely break with the fact that looks can and often do prove to be deceiving. I mean all of us have at one time or another believed in something we saw that ended up somehow being something entirely different altogether. I personally can’t count the number of times in just the last couple of weeks that I looked at the weather, both the forecast and the sky above and thought it seemed as if I was safe to go and do all that I needed to get done.

Only to end up standing in some random person’s driveway (four days in a row) soaking wet in the middle of a thunderstorm leaning on a lawn mower wondering how I was going to get caught up once the storm passed.

Four downpours I didn’t see coming.

And yet they came.

Such as the diagnosis that you didn’t want to hear. Or your boss telling you that unfortunately the company is going to have cut back as sales have slowed thanks to this volatile economy. Or the roofing guy saying that, yeah, you really could use a new roof that you really can’t afford right now. Or your car breaking down in the middle of the road and leaving you stranded amongst a million strangers who believe it better to drive by you in anger than to take a couple minutes and help you get out of their way.

This is the way that this life goes. Every single day seems always to hold some miserable surprise that we never saw coming and would have never wanted to come if we’d have had the choice.

My point is that we don’t.

We don’t get to decide what happens to us. We don’t get to determine what the weather’s going to be like this weekend. We don’t get to tell our bosses that the time has come for our raise and promotion. Sure, we can try. But so too can they laugh and tell us to get back to work.

Which is kind of what it seems like God so often does.

For so many times we come before Him with all of the plans and requests and ideas that we really think make sense as they really seem as if they’d truly make our lives so much better than whatever they’ve been or become. And, well, so much of the time, at least for me personally, at least here lately, it’s felt as if I ended up with the perfect opposite of what I’d asked for, hoped for, prayed for.

Almost as if He’s agreed to hear me out as I brought before Him all of my ideas as to how to make my life better, or at least some circumstance or situation therein, only to smile, tell me how nice my ideas were, and then ask me to get back to work doing whatever it is that I’m here to be doing.

Which is again something of this oddly ongoing mystery that seems as though few if any ever really figure out. For again, most if not all of us are at least somewhat interested in the meaning of life and the reason we have one. And yet none of what we try on as a potential answer to such an existential question has ever really seemed to satisfy us with an answer that solved the problem.

Some of them may have helped, and maybe they did for quite some time.

But the thing about this life is that it’s constantly changing. There’s always something new to look at or figure out. There’s always some new story that’s taking over the headlines and showing up everywhere we get our daily scrolling fix. Always some new debate as to who’s wrong and who’s right in regard to some fight that’s being fought over something that means less to us than the rush we get over the argument.

Again, this life has become a truly heavy burden as within it we’re all asked to bear so much that simply shouldn’t be.

Even death.

As we’ve talked about in posts in the past, it makes absolutely no sense at all for God to design life only for the life He’d designed to end with those living it ultimately dying. It’s counterproductive. It’s entirely antithetical. It’s utterly obtuse to put so much time and love into something only to intend for said something to at some point simply vanish.

His initial intention for us wasn’t for us to perish but rather to live basking in His unending provision and thus in everlasting peace and a simple appreciation for it.

But along came another idea that sounded better to us and, well, that’s when we started being human.

Something that death now promises we’ll all one day stop being.

And that’s just a really weird and often incredibly hard reality for us to understand. And what seems to make it even harder to understand is that along the way to the end of all that for now is, us included, we’re tasked with living a life that is in many ways hard and in even more ways heavy. This life we live is a burden underneath which we groan and grumble because so often we stumble and struggle under the praise and pressure that we so often feel as if we’re under to keep earning the praise from they who are too but people.

Something we so easily forget because some of us have managed to come upon lives that look better or seem as if they feel better or sound as though they’re going better than others are, than perhaps even ours are. That’s why so many remain so fascinated with popstars and politicians. They’re the ones who’ve, at least seemingly, figured out what our own inherent selfishness and vanity has us too seeking. They have all the money we’d love to have, all the fans and thus potential friends that we’d like to find, all the fun that only they can afford and too all the power that affords them lives that seem so fun.

And we underlings out here working 9-5 for bosses that just laugh at us whenever we ask about maybe moving up so that we could start making more so that we could afford to move out of our apartment or buy a car that runs better, we see these glimmering examples of life’s apparently potential and can’t help but be left standing in awe and sinking in wonder as to what it must be like to live that life.

A wonder we’ve all gotten carried away with before that’s caused us to become even more unhappy in our own lives.

Indeed, there is a grave danger to be found in all manner and measure of discontentment and that itself is a whole ‘nother topic that I hope to have the opportunity to talk about.

But for today, the point I’m getting at is that none of this is going to last. Everything that is now won’t be one day. All that is here in this world being whatever it is here to be, it’s being something that will cease as this world itself is passing away. Time is running out. The path is narrowing. The door is closing.

The grave is calling and that ringing is only getting louder and louder as all of us here are only getting older and more grouchy.

And why the grumbling, the groaning, the grouchiness?

Because we’re still trying so hard to figure out what the purpose, the point, the promise to all of this is. And we’ve all tried on so many ideas that we’re both running out of them and we’re really starting to worry as we’ve all already tried our best guesses and are kind of getting down to those we don’t really like the look, the sound, the feel of actually being an option.

Surely there’s still some chance that we’re here to have fun and be rich and make friends and live that kind of life that seems to make far more sense to more than it doesn’t. Because they are still but impressively few who seem to be coming to terms with their own mortality and how, thanks to being mortal which then brings with it a firm ending, are thus growing to also consider their own morality in the off chance that maybe all of this does lead to something else.

Maybe there is more to life than this one we’re living. Maybe there’s an entire other life that we’ll leave here to live.

Maybe the only reason we have this life is to give us the gift of getting to feel for ourselves what hope is in whatever is still to come, a feeling felt thanks to feeling here everything hard that makes hope so hopeful.

After all, who hopes for what they already have?

And, going further on that thought, who then hopes for life whenever they’re already living one?

Yeah, I can see now why so many seem to find my faith dumb.

It’s because it has me here being what is but broken and bleeding and betrayed. It’s a faith that asks that I endure this life rather than enjoy it. It’s a faith that opens my eyes to seeking for my best life not in this world where I know I have one to live but rather in that hope that tells me that this world is not all there is. It’s a faith that inspires me to take up my cross and count with it, on it everything here as everything already lost. It’s a faith that’s caused me to become so disinterested in everything here that I want only to leave.

In fact I don’t even try all that hard to be happy anymore. If it happens, great. If it doesn’t, well, then it’s no different than any other day within this life in which we all find more than plenty of things that don’t go our way.

The problem is that we’ve, as a people, taken it upon ourselves to assume that such things as health, happiness, riches, power, every other highly sought after success all have some part to play in the purpose of this life. And indeed, I would still agree they do.

I just think the point they prove in regard to this life’s purpose is found in needing to lose them, or even better never have them.

I think we’re here to break down, to get sick, to feel miserable. I think we’re here to be poor, to be lonely, to be broke and thus broken. I believe that we’re supposed to feel weak, to be sad, to know shame. I consider that we’re supposed to exist inside this place experiencing the very sum of everything that inspires us to want so badly to leave that we actually do go to lonely places just to spend some time talking to a God we can’t see in a place that for now we cannot be.

I think that this life in this world is supposed to become so hard, so heavy, so very heartbreaking that we all break down and just finally stop trying to force it to be anything other than whatever it is that He’s intended for it to be.

For we are all, for now, just humans beings being whatever humans are.

And what are humans?

We’re mortal. Thus we’re weak. Thus we’re unable, incapable, uncertain and obviously unsure as to how to fix it. And while the vast majority of those around will forge ahead trying to figure out how to force life to become whatever it is that they want it to be, the very best outcome they can ever hope to see is their having lived their very best life in what is for all of us a life that’s promised to end.

Thus many here are living for an ideal existence that will no longer exist at some point.

I don’t want that to be the outcome of all this. I cannot imagine that this life in this world is somehow supposed to be the very best of all that life has to offer. Not that there aren’t some nice things here. I’ve in fact come to enjoy at least a few. But the fact is that I cannot seem to understand what it is that’s supposed to be best about a life in a world in which we’ve all felt pain, shame, sorrow, sadness, loneliness, regret.

How are those things supposed to be best?

No. No, I’m convinced that this life is just a stress test that we can only pass by finally failing. I think we’re meant to be so broken and beaten that we finally do actually hit our knees because we just can’t stand it anymore.

And I think that we only get to go home when we’ve finally reached that point in which we’re so utterly heartbroken over what we’ve become that He finally agrees that we don’t need to be here anymore.

That we’ve learned our lesson. That we’ve found our purpose. And that the lesson, the purpose was always only for us to realize that we’re nothing and capable of the same.

I don’t know, again, maybe I’m crazy. But this life we live here is one that is constantly, every single day seeing just how much we can take and just how much we’re willing/able to give. And I think our mortality is measured in how much we can take and what little we’ve left to offer.

And the simple fact is that we’ve all less to offer today than we had yesterday, at least in terms of time, and that because this life in this place has now taken more than it had taken yesterday.

And it will take more away today. And that in work, in worry, in wonder.

This life is a burden my friends.

But thankfully, in Christ, it’s one that we can believe that we’ll not forever be under.

#LeaveNoSoulUntold