Day 4221 of the 7 day Bible verse challenge.

1 John 5:11 NIV

Where is life?

It would make sense for us to assume that it’s found here as, well, here we are and we are all living what sure seems to be a life. And indeed, we are all alive and so, yeah, here we seem to have found a life. But of late I’ve found myself beginning to wonder as to whether something is truly found where it can be lost. Can we really have what we will one day lose? Or is this not something more of a borrowing scenario in which what we have is but ours to have for but however long another’s determined to let us have it?

Is not life, as is lived within this world, but a loan of sorts?

And, well, is any loan really given without the intention of getting back that which you’ve allowed another to use for a specified time, usually unto the pre-agreed upon returning of both the initial investment alongside an equally agreed upon level of interest? Nobody, at least not many that we know of, is willing to loan us much if anything of much if anything without there being in the deal something of a reason for them to do so. Every loan is given in hopes of there being something gained in such generosity.

Should we see God as any different?

For is not the gift of even this life that we shall lose something of a gift given that we should use in what are ways that show forth our appreciation of the fact that we have been given this life, and that arguably best within it being spent knowing we’re giving it back? In fact, is this not literally the calling of the cross? To take up our own versions and crucify on them all that’s kept us lost unto the reality of why we were really given these lives?

Why were we given these lives? Was it truly for nothing more than only doing whatever we want? Are we to really believe that all of this that we call our existence is a matter of such random happenstance that nothing we do is thus able to matter? Are we seriously nothing more than space matter that happened to crash together and form everything we’ve ever known?

Is life an accident?

We sure make willingly enough of the same within it for the case to be made that we believe it to be. For in all honesty, how many things in this life do we even take all that seriously? How many things do we see as matters or meanings of such solemnity that upon them we’re entirely unwilling to budge or bend? How many rules have we come to create or at least abide beside that we believe are able to help us live better versions of life?

What is a better version of life if life is nothing more than some cosmic chaos stalled for but a moment so that we can live these lives in this one place in which life is best able to be lived?

If we indeed are, as some here apparently believe, the result of some random set of certain evolutionary accidents then how are we so easy to expect that life as we know it won’t someday explode again into something immeasurably different?

Again, is not, at least that last part, pretty much part of the promise?

For in the Christian faith we contend that God humbled Himself to come and walk amongst man so as to teach them, teach us what all we’d lost in terms of truth and reality and modesty and honesty so that we could honestly realize just how far we’d fallen from who we were at first created to be and thus too the way of life we were at first created to live. All because, as His own Word states, He wants for none to perish but rather for all to come to repentance.

Promising that in repentance there is life whereas that by avoiding such humbled change we shall only then remain upon what is the wide road which leads to destruction.

And yet, despite our seeing our society crumbling, so many remain happily found in lives lost to grumbling through every manner and measure of doubt and denial that might be found amongst man.

Why?

Because somewhere along the way to wherever this is that we’re found today with what are all of our plans for all the promises and prizes toward which we’ve planned for our plans to produce us or provide for us whatever it is that our own opinion as to whatever it is that a best life is, whatever all of this is that is now was found only because we got it in our hearts that we alone could actually know enough about all of life for our to decide what coincides with our definition of what the best of it is and what all doesn’t quite measure the same.

In other words we’ve taken it upon ourselves to determine for ourselves, and that by ourselves, the very meaning of life itself and, having each of us done so, wouldn’t you know but we’ve managed to arrive upon what are about 10 gazillion conclusions, each of us living lives in which the meaning of life has shifted and changed countless times already.

My wondering is whether or not life should be able to do that.

Should it be able to mean something different to everyone? Should life mean something different to us at different times? Should it seem to mean something different due to such randomness as different times or ages or seasons or weather occasions? Even shrink it! Should something such as happiness, of which we all seem to believe should be a part of life, should it be something found in so many different ways in so many different places?

Should there really be so much variety to life?

Granted, in life there’s obviously been decreed by He who made everything an obvious level of variety. He indeed created everything of its own kind and made all of the kinds different from one another. And truly, variety is indeed the spice of life as it makes all of life so endlessly interesting! There are so many things in this world for us to see and taste and touch and hear.

It is truly amazing down here!

But my worry is that we’ve all gotten so lost within what’s now for all of our every life always been the sampling of all that’s here and now that we’ve forgotten all about all that isn’t. And sure, this is something obviously easy to do as there does literally exist here more than any of us need to live a life. This world is such a bountiful ball of all we could ever need that, needs thus overly satisfied, we’ve again turned our eyes, our minds, our lives toward the seeking for the ever more that’s always still there to find.

Yet as we’ve tried to find more, assuming apparently that there’s something always better out there somewhere to add unto, onto, into our lives that, thanks to it our hopefully eventually coming to find, our lives themselves will be by then bettered for having found it, we’ve only managed to learn how to discount all that is already or already was.

All because our eyes know best how to see that which is still right before them.

Thus leaving Him who has come but did leave to be, at best, a belief we thus have to believe.

And asking a people who know of a life in which all they believe is only that which they can see to believe in He who they can’t, well, it’s clear we’re probably going to struggle with it. And yeah, the message of the cross remains foolishness to those who are lost thinking that they’ve managed to find elsewhere a better story simply because it’s one that they get to tell unto their own personal gain and glory. All because, unto us, such is all that matters.

All that means anything to anyone is what we have and what more we want.

And indeed, of this we are all guilty.

Thankfully He came to change everything, our guilt included. But the problem remains that we’re all so deluded in lives themselves now all but entirely diluted that still we dance with doubt and find plenty of reason in denial.

Why?

Because we think that life is here in the one place in which, whilst we do have one, is also the one place in which we will all lose one. And now this wouldn’t be such the problem if we had knowledge of another life we could go on living. But what then seems so strange to me is that we have just such a promise and yet it’s the one that most folks continue ahead refusing to believe.

So much so that I’m honestly to the point in which I’m becoming convinced that the ability to believe is perhaps the greatest blessing ever to be given unto anyone to whom it’s given.

Why?

Because every day we walk beside those whose understanding of belief is bound perpetually inside their estimation as to that which is best in life. And they thus live this life seeking for only those things found in this life that seem to them to be the best things in this life, for this life, for their life.

But all that can ever really boil down to is their spending an entire life picking and choosing from what is, again, everything that can be found here.

Which is also promised to one day be everything we will lose here.

All because all that is found here, felt here, heard here, done here, it will be over and behind us when that dirt is poured on top of us.

Life as we know it will one day be over.

And so, again I wonder, is something truly found where it can be lost? Can we have what we one day won’t have? Or is not all that we do have but ours to have for only however long we’re found wherever it is that we’re able to have it?

And, if life itself does indeed continue on after this chapter of it has closed, then would it not by then have made far more sense for our to wonder as to the way of life that doesn’t end?

Granted, again, belief itself has become a very touchy subject as, like basically everything else, we’ve all our own personal perspectives upon the subject. But still, the truth is that we all believe in something. Only difference is that some seem more childlike in their ability to believe as they seem to believe in far bigger things than others do. And indeed, perhaps what we believe is a choice we can choose.

Sure seems to be.

But what if it isn’t? What if our ability to believe is something granted unto us by He who bestows every other such blessing as life and the ability to live it? Again, this may all be some kind of cosmic accident and thus nothing that we do or is done unto us matters as it too would be but the result of a series of utter randomness.

But, again, what if it isn’t?

What if there’s more to this than we think there is? What if there’s even less? What if less really is more? What if the first will be last? What if those who lose their lives unto the hope of finding in so doing a deeper relationship with Christ are those find their lives?

What is life?

Where is life?

Why is life both here and now but also an idea still held by some somewhere else entirely?

Why is the concept of eternity one that we can all contemplate? Again, why is the best way to live a life up for debate? Why do we all have such varied and different and usually always changing priorities? Does not the fact that even our own desires change pretty much prove that we have no idea what we’re doing? And, if that is the case, then how are we to ever be sure that whatever we’re doing is what we should be doing?

What if it’s all again just some big accident?

The sad reality is that there are plenty who believe that. That life as we know it just sort of happened and that, thanks to the unforeseen starting of it, so too does the end of it bring with it nothing but that which is entirely unknowable. And sure, if the grand outcome of this is going to be proven in the same nothingness from which some contend we came, then nothing we do here in the middle would matter all that much and thus we could spend our lives doing whatever it is that we like and never have to worry about any kind of moral or logical or legal comeuppance.

And maybe we don’t.

Why then are some able, willing, excited even to believe that we will?

Guess maybe that’s just their version of all this making it up as we go wherever it is that we are.

But as for me, I can’t even begin to have that much faith to legitimately say that all of this is only supposed to be whatever it is that we ourselves determine it should become. And that because I’ve tried so many times for so many things that simply didn’t pan out. I’ve had plans go up in smoke while doubts and fears ended up turning out far better than I could have ever hoped.

Sure, that could be seen as life that agrees unto the utter randomness of everything that many seem to believe this life to be.

Or it could be seen, just as easily, as the hand of God working all things for the good of those He loves and who love Him in return.

I reckon that’s where the issue lies.

It’s love and our understandings thereof.

Many here consider love in terms of something mostly beneficial unto themselves, a wonderful addendum unto their lives that gives them such things as affirmation and affection. It’s warmth that wins comfort and a sense of belonging. And, at times, it’s something so wonderful that we even dare offer it unto a few select others, usually selected thanks to their having loved us first.

Problem then is that that doesn’t always seem to work as, thanks to our opinion of love being something all but bound to warmth and affirmation, we see then nothing of love in the story of Christ coming down to save us as He did so by giving His life upon a sinners cross that He says is ours.

And there’s nothing loving about telling someone that what they’ve come to love in their lives is wrong.

So most here continue to consider that He is. Again, the message of the cross is foolishness unto those who are perishing.

Only problem is that those same who are living their lives considering the message of salvation unto eternal life to be foolish are the same who would likely offer up the suggestion that life is to be best lived doing only whatever we like only wherever we are only for however long we’re here to do it.

Again, I just can’t personally see any point to that as, well, if I’m the one to determine what life is, where life goes, whatever it is that’s supposedly the best of all life holds, then I’m in trouble because I’ve again tried plenty of things only to have come to realize I was really wrong.

And I can’t imagine spending the rest of my time here trying only more things that I alone think might matter only to run out of time having never come to find what really did.

All because I believed that life was only where I had one that I couldn’t allow myself to see was only one I’d lose.

Yes, what we have here is a life and thus there is a life here. But can we really have what we will lose? And considering how all of us will die, then is what we have here really life?

Or might life be somewhere else?

My faith teaches me that life is a treasure meant to be stored where it can’t be lost or stolen or soiled or stained. None of those are things that we can say about this place. Not even close. But thanks to Christ we have this hope in there being a home where hope itself won’t let us go. And, in this hope, we don’t then have to be the ones who hold it. No, rather He holds us. He helps us. He leads us, guides us, frees us, finds us even whenever we’ve once again wandered off.

Friends, it’s not even the wandering anymore that I worry about but rather I wonder why we keep doing it. What else are we hoping to find? What does this world have that could ever possibly prove better than the promise of eternal life? What does this place have to give that we can have that would hold more than His having taken that cross and used it to turn the grave into a garden?

I don’t know but it sure seems that many are looking for life here. And I hope they find it. Truly I do. But I just can’t bring myself to continue trying to find what I know without question is something that we’ll all lose.

The simple fact is that we won’t be here forever but that forever will be there for us.

Only difference to be found is where, or perhaps rather how we’ll spend it.

And that difference will depend entirely upon the presence of Christ in us or the sadly more common lack thereof. Maybe that’s something we can choose. But, in truth, anymore it just makes far more sense that He chose us because, well, I’ve made a ton of choices thinking that I would find life at its best within them only to have been entirely mistaken.

Guess I’m just tired of trying to find life only to fail.

Think I’ll just let life be where it’s always been and trust He who is Life to lead me toward it.

What about you?

#LeaveNoSoulUntold