Day 4200 of the 7 day Bible verse challenge.

Ecclesiastes 1:17 NIV

The search continues…

For such is what a search is meant to do. We all undertake any search in which we search for whatever it is that we thus apparently feel the need to search with the often hope-filled expectation of finding whatever it is that we’ve determined is worth looking for. Nobody, or I guess I should say I assume that nobody, ever agrees to do much if anything of anything without their having a strong reason or excuse, or I suppose even alibi, already firmly in place and well established beforehand in regard to why they’re going to do whatever it is that they’re planning to and, too, the overall outcome for whatever this undertaking will hopefully become.

And, well, when the undertaking is a journey taken from the madness of man toward the wisdom of God, you’d think we’d understand that a lot is going to happen, going to change, going to probably confuse and thus ask we lose what are our preconceived notions about whatever it is that we think that anything is.

Because He tells us plainly that His ways are higher. He sets before us a clear set of standards. He instructs us to take up our crosses and wear them as banners showing that we believe so deeply in He who came to set us this free to so believe that we’re willing to even betray ourselves if such is what it takes to know Him more and, from there, to help more know of Him.

A goal we have within this faith because so too does His Word say that mankind shall remain upon this landmine until such time as the Name of Christ has been heard and thus the Gospel truth preached in all the corners of this globe.

Corners in a globe?

Yeah, like I said, a lot is going to happen, going to change, going to become confusing as we set our hearts to being at first made new and then, once there, undertaking all that He’s been calling us to have been doing since well before we even started caring to try it for ourselves.

And we’ve spent so much time not really caring nor thus trying to find anything of Him, about Him, even ourselves before Him because we’ve always been but men who know but to remain lost inside of our minds and their eager assurance that we already know enough about enough to ensure that whatever we’re doing is both right to do and that too we’re doing it right.

In fact, seems that this is the commonest of all shared destinations in this deathbed we’re leaving.

It’s that mindset that allows us to sit upon whatever we already are, all that we already know, the sum of all that we have and the mystery of all that we don’t and aren’t and cannot then ever be until we agree that there is more we can see, can say, can be. A spot chosen because all we are is just prideful enough to assume there’s in us that same concept of enough to so place our trust in who we are, what we have, what we know, and, well, what we don’t.

Indeed, we’re such a confused creation that we’re all more than willing to settle for the belief in all that is already being all that we need there to be, just so we don’t have to be or know anything more, all so that we too wouldn’t then need to try or learn or seek or search for anything else.

We will happily settle for everything less because, to us, life consists inside an abundance of, well, pretty much anything we can have an abundance of.

Problem then has become that what we have the most abundant abundance of is selfishness, stupidity, laziness, greed, gluttony, ego, irrationality, irritability, doubt, fear, foolishness and an overwhelming supply of folly that keeps us perpetually able to not see any of it there.

Where?

Inside our hearts.

Truly, from each life’s start we all start to fall apart in what gradually becomes a degree earned in the ways of a world filled with those who clearly think that running around like chickens searching for heads is a good way to spend our days leading up to death. There are truly those, and we’ve all been them, who are plenty content to spend years, decades perhaps, sampling the content of this world seeking within all that’s here all that might mean something.

Never managing to find it mind you.

Hence the continuous searching.

For indeed, the search does continue for all of us. And, for all of us, it’s one both enjoyed and endured. We all seem to quite enjoy the seasons of life in which we’re riding high and everything seems to be going right as within them it’s impossibly easy to assume that we must be doing right, walking right, talking right, living right. And on the backside of that coin we all equally grumble through those days in which things aren’t going quite so well as the difficulties and dangers of this life are literally only there to warn us that something isn’t right.

Even that perhaps we’re not living right.

But that can’t be right as, to our eyes, we see inside our every reflection those who’ve passed inspection long ago. Indeed, we should be good to go. After all, just look at all we know! Look at all we have! Give up a map and look at all the places we’ve been as we regale you with stories upon stories of memories and milestones made and mocked along the trips we’ve walked to the place we are as the finished version of ourselves that we all just want to be.

All so that we don’t have to try anymore or look anymore or fall short of being or finding the more we all still hopefully know we’re not.

A fact given unto this life we’re living because there is nothing ever truly finished in this world. There is nothing perfect in this place. Rather we all just agree to undertake any and every journey and job with a firm willingness to do at best our very best until such time as we either complete said task or trip to what is as satisfactory an outcome as we can offer or we rather just tire of all the trying and walk away toward something else that seems to us as more fruitful or meaningful or perhaps even possible.

All because we’ve all become what are these creatures who seek always for completion.

Like we talked about a bit yesterday, we all seek for finish lines in life. We want things that we can end, that we can accomplish, that we can achieve because such things as these give us concrete, immovable examples of our efforts and their abilities. This is why we’re all so amazed by trophies. It’s because, should we endeavor to win one and actually manage to do so, they can then sit on a shelf somewhere just waiting for someone to ask us for the story about how we got them.

And then we get to bask in the beauty that is our days of glory in which we were unstoppable, unbeatable, entirely proven able to overcome and accomplish whatever task or trial it was that that trophy says we toppled.

We love those boxes that we can check as are filled with goals we’ve had and the glory we’ve gaining in our having fulfilled them.

And so too we loathe those things which ask us to keep trying. To keep learning.

To keep losing.

In fact, we all hate learning because it’s something only done within the loss of our ego’s insistence that we know enough already and that unto the gaining of a decidedly larger degree of uncertainty about our present level of understanding and ability than said ego had assured us we had. Indeed, this is the problem with all such pride! It’s that it exists only to convince us that we’ve already done enough in life, that we’ve already become enough in life.

Pride is adamant that every opportunity for our to be or see or do something better be left forever untaken because, to pride, there is no opportunity for us to be or see or do anything better than whatever it is that it has us convinced is already good enough.

I hate the idea of good enough. And that’s because it’s such close a cousin to that ideal I despise that is this thing we try in which we try to live our best life. I literally get annoyed anytime I see that line be it on a bumper sticker or a billboard. Our last apartment even had it plastered on the mats lain before each and every door as you walked out, encouraging everyone as they ventured out into the world to seek there whatever they thought was their best.

I don’t have a best.

I have the best that I’m able to offer. I’ve the best for which I hope I can be. I have the best which exists within this belief that God’s put me here to do always better than everything I’ve done already.

But I myself have no best. I am not capable of perfect. I fail daily. I fall short continuously. Literally just yesterday I found out that despite my trying so hard to grow my little business and manage to get everything done in an appropriate amount of time considered alongside such variables as weather and what kind of rock someone wants for their flowerbed, that even though I’m trying so hard, I still let folks down and disappoint them all the time.

And that’s something that pride can’t comprehend in life.

And that’s because we’ve all become so wise in our own eyes that, unlike Solomon here, we’ve stopped seeking for understanding. We’ve given up our search for wisdom having become convinced that we’ve already found it. For that’s the other side of every search we undertake in which we search for whatever it is that we thus feel the need to search for:

We stop once we’ve found it.

Because that’s the wise thing to do!

Problem is that wisdom cannot be found, much less finished. And, sadly, nor can madness or folly it seems. And I say this because we live in a world that’s a complete mess despite everyone at the very least trying to live their best lives and many having apparently already arrived.

What we see and who we are is apparently the best we can hope to find or expect to be.

And, if that’s the case, then I truly don’t know what to say.

Because, well, where is wisdom? Where is understanding standing? Where is the home of humility? What happened to happiness? Where did godliness go? Of all there is for us to know, how can we ever know how much we don’t?

Sadly, again, we treat everything in life as if it were something we were meant to finish or find, the finding preceding always the finishing as, well, again, once you find whatever it was that you were looking for you’ve thus succeeded and needn’t keep looking.

Once you’ve tracked down every set of car keys you have for your car, it would be pretty pointless to keep looking for more.

Wouldn’t it?

Indeed, it would. But this is the danger in our approaching everything in life as if it all has a finish line we can find. Because, as people who just throw the same effort and intention at everything, we thus treat such things as wisdom and hope and growth the same as we do other things like dinner and crossword puzzles and working on lawn mowers.

We see everything in life as something we can complete.

Wisdom doesn’t work that way. And, as is seen clearly inside of every day lived still here, neither do madness or folly. Rather all such things exist in and on this endless spectrum within which there’s an equally endless opportunity to see or experience more of either. You see, wisdom isn’t made up of a bunch of facts that we can pull out at the drop of the hat. And nor does foolishness exist within a certain number of mistakes we accidentally make.

In fact, wisdom and folly exist together as without the one there cannot be the other.

It’s like light and dark. They’re, for here and now at least, entirely inseparable. They form this ongoing give-and-take experiencing of one another. Just as how within every given day we’re given we experience the light grow brighter as the day marches onward toward what is the always coming nighttime in which the light finds that it’s increasingly replaced by the dark until morning comes back around.

Indeed, it seems to me that the struggle with knowledge, with understanding, with the wisdom that takes the both and combines them into whatever it is that we do with them, is found in that the more you come to know, the more you learn you don't. Rather knowledge brings always with it this realization that there's always room to grow and improve. Wisdom knows that there’s both more to know and also better ways to use whatever we already do.

But so too does wisdom teach that along the endless path toward it you even learn that you cannot accomplish either knowledge or understanding so long as you insist on trying to find them your way.

Because our way is all about the completion. Again, we want the trophy. We want the degree hanging on our wall. We want the money in our bank account. We want the trips booked six months in advance. We want all of our plans and all their priorities so firmly in place that we know we can’t miss anything or mess anything up.

All because we’ve all become so afraid of failure that we’ve convinced ourselves the best thing we can do in life is avoid those things which we might fail. Guess that’s why wisdom is anymore considered something personal to everyone, something different to everyone. Truly, in this world one person’s wisdom is another’s madness. One person’s foolishness is another’s finish line. One person’s best life is a betrayal of the same to someone else.

For we’ve all become convinced that such things as knowledge and wisdom and understanding are all able to be found within us, thus meaning we know where to find them, thus proving that we’ve found them since we seem to know where and what they are. And too, that such things as foolishness and stupidity aren’t in us.

Yes, we are all convinced that we’re all the wisest of them all and that, as such, we can both stop seeking for wisdom, stop looking for understanding, stop growing in knowledge and, maybe more impressive and soothing to our pride, we can stop worrying about looking like fools in life. We can stop worrying about messing up or falling short. We can sleep peacefully at night knowing that when, not if (so far as we’re concerned), when tomorrow comes we’ll be then just as able to continue living our best lives as the best versions of ourselves that we’ve already become.

Wisdom doesn’t agree to stop seeking itself though.

Why?

Because wisdom’s like the wind. Madness and folly are too. They all just keep going. They’re endlessly moving objects. They’re things which have no home, no address, no end. We can all of us grow endlessly in wisdom, in knowledge, in understanding. And yet, according to the wisest man who ever lived, who is the one which shared with us this message in today’s verse, he says elsewhere that we shouldn’t endeavor to be too righteous nor too wise as doing so would only bring about our destruction.

Why?

Because whenever we become wise in our own eyes or righteous enough that we can rest upon our own righteousness, we stop looking too or leaning on or learning from anyone else.

Thus Christ cannot be our savior as we needn’t be saved as we’re both apparently righteous enough to not need salvation and wise enough to be so certain.

All because our pride has convinced us that we’ve somehow found the end of the spectrum.

Friends, that would be like knowing when forever will run out of time.

It’s not possible as forever doesn’t run out of time as forever doesn’t even exist within time.

Nor do any of us exist as wise nor as fools. Rather we’re all somewhere in between them, hopefully there wherever we are on that endless line still trying to find any possible way to grow toward the right and thus leave behind the wrong.

But alas, so often in life it seems as if we’ve just pulled off and picked our spot and agreed to stay put until we die.

We’ve all given up on what it means to be wise because we can’t. And we probably don’t even realize we can’t because we’re all so foolish as to think we already are. Because, well, again, our thinking that we’ve already found wisdom or righteousness or understanding or the best way to live these lives we’re living, what else is there for us to find?

Only everything that exists outside of us!

And, well, that’s one place none of us ever wish to be.

And so here we sit inside what is a version of life in which we worry ourselves blind not about how foolish we are nor thus how wise we’re not but rather about such meaninglessness as how we feel and what we like and all we hope to have in what remains a life that we’re too broken and blind to realize we’re promised to one day leave behind.

Where will that finish line find us?

Sadly, for most, only still lost in a life spent trying to find finish lines.

All because we’ve all lost our ability, our interest, our willingness to chase after what we can’t catch because we don’t have the humility to realize that what we’ve already caught has left us lost as to all there’s still left for us to find.

If wisdom is life and folly then death then why would we ever agree to stop anywhere in between?

After all, just because we can’t find the one here doesn’t mean we’ll not all find the other.

Thus the search (hopefully) continues.

#LeaveNoSoulUntold