Day 4191 of the 7 day Bible verse challenge.

Psalm 104:29 NIV

We huff and we puff

Probably because we know that one day He will take these lives away from us. And, well, we’ve become of the mind that these lives are ours, a lie in an accordance with we’ve lived for so long now that the promise of our leaving this earth seems the promise of only a jerk. Because the simple truth is that we all enjoy these lives. We love the act of living. In our opinion living a life is something we’re all fairly good at, something that we’ve been doing long enough, and with success enough, that we feel as if we’re somehow owed the opportunity to go on living them for however long we may want them.

Losing the promise of eternity within our hurry to always keep doing whatever little it is that we’re still willing to try and that alongside our appreciation for the fact that this life we have is an opportunity that we’ve been given.

And, well, bad things happen whenever you start to become unappreciative.

Especially should it get to the point in which to start taking big things for granted.

Such as simple facts like how we woke up again today with what’s then a few more breaths to take and a couple more choices to make that may make or break the rest of our lives. Or the reality that we’ve all eyes with which to see the continuing of the unfolding of the beauty of such sights as the stars lighting up the night sky or the simple flow to a butterfly dancing on the wind with nowhere in particular to go. Or that we’ve ears to hear the sound of a child’s laugh or that allow us to take in that song that always lifts our spirits up.

Indeed, anymore it seems that most days we’ve all forgotten not only that we’re given lives as if cups but even more so that they’re filled so that we’ve so much to be thankful for.

No, gratitude is becoming increasingly hard to find or feel within the general attitude of man. Instead everyone just seems always angry or frustrated or worried about something. And sure, we’ve I’m sure plenty of reasons for our feeling any and all of all the above, reasons that may well be quite justifying to our choosing to descend into them.

But my concern is that the problem is that we’ve all fallen already so far that we’ve not really all that much further to go before God, in glory, looks down on us so constantly unhappy and unhealthy and unholy and somehow unworried about how often we are all of the above and, in love, simply decides to take these lives away from us.

Because, at some point, it would seem hateful, rude, just blatantly unkind and completely uncaring to force people to go on living what seem so clearly such miserable journeys.

And sure, He could with His finger take and rewrite everything so as to ensure that it unfolded according to our wants and wishes. He could make changes to His will so that we could enjoy ourselves more in accord with however or in whatever it is that we’ve come to find our enjoyment. He could even go so far as to make the promise that the rest of our lives would be utterly painless.

But I think we’ve also forgotten that that which is painless is often that which has the best chance of also being pointless.

Indeed, we’ve all become so adverse to such things as pain and fear that we do all we can to keep them and all their friends as far from our lives as we want them to stay. We’ve become a people who want always for everything to be so easy and remain so comfortable that we’re left actually able to actively do nothing and feel justified in so doing. We just want these lives to go our way, missing the truth which shows us effortlessly that “our way” changes by the day.

If not the hour.

And yet we all continue to live as if we’ve the power to make all of these demands and to follow only all of our dreams and to do whatever of anymore relatively few things that we’ve for whatever reason decided to do.

Reasons we probably don’t spend much time thinking about if we were to be honest.

Which, more often than not, we’re not.

At least with ourselves.

Rather most days find us looking in the mirror of vanity and seeing not our insanity or these lives we live lost in lust and lazy. No, seems that most often we see only the sum of everything that we’ve made ourselves out to be. And, well, considering our penchant for pride and our preference for purchasing all he sells, we’ve again become of the opinion that our lives are going quite well and that only because we’re so good at living them that we deserve to have it so.

Yes, we live as if life is owed, but not merely the opportunity to live it, no, but in fact the promise that we can live it the way we want to and have then within it all that we want to and do then with it, within it whatever it may be that we may come to want to.

It all comes always back to us and what we want and what we don’t and we determine the both based upon nothing more than our ever-shifting lists of likes and dislikes.

But again, what seems odd to me is that daily it seems that everyone here is so unhappy that most seem to like, enjoy, appreciate less and less all the time.

Instead everyone seems so constantly upset that we should start wondering why it is that we continue thinking that we’re good at this.

Because, if we were truly as great at living these lives as we so clearly seem to assume we are, then why is there still so much that’s falling apart? And yeah, we could cuss and discuss the idea that things are getting better thanks to such ideals most have as that of technological advancement and scientific progression. But the simple fact is that we’re all entirely too unhappy entirely too often considering that we’re living a gift and that every breath we take within is another we’ve been given.

Do they all find us drowning in happiness or comfort or peace? No.

Do we have more reasons to be happy and to seek peace and to realize that our understanding of comfort (at least in terms of where to look for it) is perhaps widely, wildly misplaced than we seem able to recognize?

Sadly, yeah. In fact it seems to me that we all choose actively to miss so many amazing things simply because we’re busy or angry or distracted by some argument we’re trying desperately to win within the comment section of some social media post about something we honestly don’t care about. Indeed, we’re so surrounded by things this world tells us to pay attention to that it seems we’ve all pretty much agreed to let down our guards as we just go along being dragged wherever the crowd leads us.

All because we’ve all come to find comfort in the companionship of those who know vastly better how to complain than they do to compliment.

Speaking of, I’ve found myself doing something new of late as I’m out in the heat working away at the job we’ve (both He and me) chosen for myself. It’s been pretty brutal around here lately, multiple days well above 90 with heat indices spilling over into the 100’s. And yet the scorching reality of my having chosen to own and operate a lawn care business in a place where it gets like this every summer has found me measurably more thankful for such things as trees and breezes.

And the something new that I’m talking about is that almost every time that a breeze blows by and cools me down for a moment, I just tell God thank you.

For, as one of my more favorite characters in a show once said, “I am an ant, toiling on the forest floor. I see only the leaf above my head. That leaf brings me some relief from the sun.”

And I for one have become quite grateful for the fact that He’s given me the ability to realize such simple blessings as a breeze blowing in some slightly cooler air or a tree which offers a bit of shade or a ½ gallon water jug that my family fills up for me before I head out for the day.

Sure, these may all be little things, air, water, shade and its modicum of shelter. And yeah, considering how common they are, they are all quite easy to overlook and thus things we often ignore.

What if we didn’t do that anymore?

What if we did try to compliment God for the simple gifts He sends our way rather than giving these lives to our love of complaining about the inconveniences we meet within them?

What if doing so could even help us to each eventually become so humble as to spend more days more thankful than angry and upset?

Wouldn’t that be better than whatever this is that we’ve chosen and for some reason continue to choose instead? For what is it about this version of life we’re living that we love so much? Is it the rush of us thinking we’re the ones in charge? Is it the thrill we feel whenever we think about the things we plan to do or hope to be? Is it the sense of authority we find within the many thoughts trapped inside our minds all but begging to be released into the things we come to do, words we learn to say? Is it the success we’ve found in doing this all “our way”?

All of which are foolishness, falsities, fornications of the very foundations of this life we’ve been given the chance to live.

For we have no power. We’re not in charge of anything. We don’t control anything. Our plans and their dreams more often than not come to nothing or elsewise amount to the same. The authority we think we have is but an arrogance too wild to realize how small we are. And as for ‘our way’, truth is that that’s never been a thing.

All of this unfolds according to His will, not our way. In fact, all our way can ever be is but defined by however it is that we react to life unfolding as He’s determined for it to.

And, well, we’re not really good at choosing the right ways to react!

For most days find us far more angry with Him over things that aren’t going right than we are thankful for the simple fact that we’re alive. We spend far more time arguing with Him, voicing our seemingly endless displeasure found in and over all the things that we’re asked to endure, than we’re then able to spend counting all the treasures we’ve been given within the blessings He keeps sending.

A fact proven in that the breeze keeps blowing and the stars keep glowing and the butterflies we barely notice just keep on floating wherever it is that they’ll eventually end up.

Gliding along as if they’ve not a care in the world other than enjoying their business of flying.

Maybe that’s it. In fact I’m convinced it is. I think the problem is that we’ve all come to become almost completely convinced that our business here is the living of a life. And yeah, I can see how there we’d arrive considering the fact that we are all alive and thus we’re all living a life.

Problem is that this life we’re living is one lived in the business of dying.

And I think it’s that one fact alone that we continue to allow to set the tone for nearly everything we do in life. And I think it’s also why so much of what we do is only prove we’re almost happy being angry all the time. For anymore it seems that we’re not having fun unless we’re having some fight over something. That we’re not enjoying ourselves unless we’re trying to prove ourselves to someone else who has a different opinion than ours. That we’re not at peace unless we’re lost in some argument or competition.

This is what we’ve all but insisted this life become!

And the result seems to be that we’ve all come to become these little balls of anger and despair and disappointment and doubt and darkness and fear and fragility and the most fabulously failed opportunity to just be happy, thankful, aware even of all the gifts we’re daily given.

Life being the most obvious of them all!

And I think that’s because our fear of losing “our” lives has left us having to find anything and everything that may help us to become blind to the fact that a gift given is one that can be taken away.

Indeed, dying is the most commonly shared concern across humanity.

And, again, that makes sense seeing as how living this life is literally all we know how to do.

We’ve been doing it for as long as we’ve been alive. That’s both how and why we’re all also so good at eating food and drinking water (or whatever you may choose in its place as most in this place don’t drink just water as they find it too boring) or sleeping or talking or thinking (one that’s sadly kind of waning I’m afraid). But my point is that we’re all good at doing all these things because life itself as it was created made them all so necessitated that we’ve had to spend our lives practicing them.

The body literally cannot survive without food and water and so we eat and drink simply because we have to. We can’t function properly without getting some rest and letting our bodies and minds do the same as our eyes force them to take a break from all we’re all trying so hard to be or do. We have to talk or elsewise communicate because we’re a communal people who grow through the sharing of ideas and the warning of potential dangers.

Life has forced us to learn certain things that have become so continually practiced that we are really good at doing them.

Problem is that we think that being good at many of life’s many aspects means that we’re good at living life.

The cross says we’re not.

In fact, the cross says we’re going to die.

But so often it seems we find reason to stop at the promise of our losing this life and that keeps us from going a little further to realize that the empty grave says we only have to do it once.

We’re just unwilling to agree that we deserve that promise. Either of them in fact. Because, no, we don’t want to die as, again, we’re all only good at living this life. It’s all we’ve ever known, ever done. And so the very idea of all that we’ve learned and looked at and leaned on being one day taken away, yeah, that is a scary thing!

But it doesn’t mean that we need to live our lives denying we will lose everything we’ve ever known or being angry at the One who told us that it’s only so because He has something so much better to replace it all with.

In fact, we’re all so upset with God over His promise to take from us the sinful flesh that many here, probably most sadly, still deny the authority, the divinity, the kindness and generosity of He who is the Christ.

Why?

Because His having died is a reminder that we all will too.

And we don’t want to spend our lives thinking about losing them. And so most here don’t spend any time thinking about Him nor the fact that He willingly gave His up. For that’s nothing we know how to do. That’s nothing we want to do. That’s something that some are even trying to prove we won’t have to do.

And yet nobody has ever proven that successfully as everyone who has ever been born as also been forced to leave this place.

The worry is found in how little practice we have for such a thing as that.

Because we don’t practice dying. We’re all called to. That’s in truth the whole point of His asking us to deny ourselves and take up our crosses and follow Him. It’s not because He wants us to be miserable. It’s because He’s trying to help us be ready to lose everything that we’re all promised to lose one day.

For the fact of this life is that it doesn’t last forever. We’ve all, at best, just over a hundred years to live in all. And so, depending upon where you are in terms of age, take that away from roughly 100 and that’s how long you’ve left. And that number gets smaller by the breath.

And one day we will here breathe our last. And when we do these bodies we spend so much time worrying about pleasing will be left and here return to the dust from which they were taken and thus of which they are made.

You ever think about that?

That we are all literally nothing but dust, water, air and theory?

We’re all but soil and sea and a bit of breath we get to breathe for just long enough to take some of our ideas and put them into action so as to only really ever see what happens.

And yet we live as if we know what we’re doing and that everything we do is important.

Some of it is.

But I worry that most of it isn’t.

Because most of what we do is only focused on us and here, neither of which will be there one day. For one day He will take our breath away as we’re simply not meant to breathe this air forever, not now that we’ve so polluted it with the scent and stench of sin and self. No, such is why we’re all promised to die and leave there behind a world that itself is also passing away.

And, sadly, for many upon that day He will turn His face away as they themselves are turned away from the gift that is everlasting life toward that other end of the line in what is a place of endless terror and torment. An outcome He wants for none but one that simply must exist thanks to our having the option, and it being one so commonly chosen, to live these lives denying Him His right to watch us live for more than, again, sin and self.

My point is that down here we all talk a good game about how great we are at living a life. But friends, one day we’re all going to look up and find that all we’ve ever known, life itself, will be gone. And yeah, it’s easy for us to be afraid of that.

But what if it didn’t have to be so scary? What if it wasn’t scary at all?

What if death was able to become a prize we gain at the end of what are so clearly lives of pain and fear and worry and failure?

Fact is that one day we’ll leave this place and there and then find ourselves stood face-to-face with the God who created us. Will it be a terrifying experience? Probably.

Does it have to be?

Not if we agree to help Him help us learn humility before that day comes.

#LeaveNoSoulUntold