Day 4251 of the 7 day Bible verse challenge.

Proverbs 13:7 NIV

Welcome to the show

The one in which everyone’s all dressed up and yet most live as if we’ve all nowhere to go, nothing more to be, never anything else to see or believe other than whatever we already do as is usually only about all we’ve either already done, wanted and won or what more we still hope to have while we’re here in what is a world in which everything’s weird and most of it’s fake and this because we, for some reason, simply cannot wait for the hope of being somewhere else that’s said to have something better as people who are by then made into something more.

No, it’s all anymore as if we’ve all washed upon the shore of a billion different lives each being lived in a hundred different ways seeking after a million different things of which we’re all so very sure that we never stop to consider anything else, anything less, everything more.

Never then wandering near the realization that it’s all fake.

That we live in a world where the truth is held as a lie and lies are allowed to live our lives. Where people put on all these performances for people who are themselves performing for the people performing for them. Where we all run around trying on all our little outfits that act as if costumes which tell a story that we know we don’t really know, have never actually lived. Yes, we both wake up and go to bed without any real concern as to who we are, why we’re here, what we’re doing while we’re here and whether or not any our excuses for not doing something else are really all that valid.

Because we can sure make it seem as if they are.

We can make people think that they are. Shoot, we’ve even convinced ourselves that they are! Which, granted, isn’t really all that hard as, well, we’re the ones who want them to be and so we’re those who are probably easiest to convince that they indeed may very well be.

Each of able now to look in a mirror and see the reflection of something both regal and revolting, which one depending on the day and whether or not our many excuses and excusings have worked or not.

Thankfully they usually do because among our greatest performances are those of this self-pity in which we seem always of the ability to see ourselves as something we’re not. We can cry when we’ve nothing to be sad about, laugh whenever there’s nothing funny going on, scream and shout even though we’re perfectly happy and therefore at peace and yet too pretend we’re at peace whenever everything inside of us is screaming, yelling, crying out for help in what we all, I hope, know are lives that are not going well.

We may want them to be. We should want them to be. We should indeed be working endlessly, tirelessly to help them to be.

But indeed, that there are those who seem to already know both their life’s best and thus that they’ve already accomplished, achieved, thus finished their best with all this life still left on the clock, it’s gotta be some kind of joke, right? Truly, how dare we ever act as if we’re done or have then done enough in what are lives so usually messed up that we usually wake up to repeat only the past performances for what have become crowds that have already gone home?

Nobody’s watching anymore.

We’re not selling out stadiums my friends, just rather selling our souls. And yet, to most, it seems the show never gets old. Rather everything remains a matter of pretense and pretend and it’s all but impossible to know which one or why.

Why?

Because pretty much all of life as we’ve come to live it is a lie. It’s all made up. It’s all for the cameras, in our case today, literally. We put on so many shows for those who think us they know and who we want to seem as if we know too and yet all then that we do is only done unto the one we’re trying to impress rather than to ourselves improve.

Why?

Because pretty much everyone has come upon the first outlook on life as considered inside this verse. The vast majority of folks down here live as if they’re already everything they could ever possibly be and thus too that they usually too have everything or can elsewise do anything they may ever need to have or do. We think we’ve got it all figured out and that’s the very first thing that usually comes out of our mouths. That we got this. It’s all under control. We can handle it, we can manage it, we can take it.

Where are we taking it?

Where is all of this make believe taking us?

I mean, I’ll agree that the whole “fake it ‘til you make it” mindset has its benefits but friends, what’s all of our faking it making us?

Because it’s sure not anything better.

Rather most of us seem entirely prone to sitting passively in lives that are filled with time that’s passing us by. Most of us again live every single day these really strange lives in which one sight is seen on the outside screen whilst another that’s entirely different plays inside. We’ve become so used to using ourselves as if paid actors that, as with actors, everything we say is but a line we’ve rehearsed and all that we do is only done to be seen by those around us.

But woe to those who practice their righteousness before others so to be seen by them for they’ll have had their reward. Or, more specifically, “be careful not to practice your righteousness in front of others to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven.”

And yet that’s the problem! It’s that so many people are not only living as if their reward isn’t Heaven but rather held inside something here but too that they’re already holding it. That they’ve already found it. That they’ve then already figured it all out, found the best, discarded the rest and are visibly content to spend out the rest of their days resting in their ways as are, granted, shown in such a way that does make it seem as if their lives are always okay.

Are they though?

Are we?

No.

None of us are okay. None of us are doing fine. None of us are doing good. In truth, none of us are good. There are none who are good. There are none who do what’s right. Indeed, “everyone has turned away, all have become corrupt; there is no one who does good, not even one.”

Rather, as even Christ said, there is only One who is good and that is God and yet God is the One that the vast majority spend their lives living as if they don’t need.

Just look at how great they’ve done on their own!

Look at all the fun they have, all the fortune they’ve made, all the friends they’ve found. Look at all their fame and success and the many followers and fans and trophies and medals they have to prove it.

Yes, look at all they’ve already accomplished in what are then lives in which they live as if their best is behind them, at best beside them.

And that alongside others who too live lives that aren’t what they seem. For while some live as if they’re rich even though they lack what truly makes a life worth living, the same as will allow life to continue being lived, others live as if they have nothing, know nothing, are nothing.

All while they have a hope that’s worth more than everything money can buy.

Why?

Because we’re all just afraid of the truth. We’re all scared to put ourselves, our true selves out there for the world to see because we know perfectly well that we’ll be judged. That we’ll be misunderstood. That we’ll be loved by some and yet hated by more. And, maybe more than anything, we know that nobody believes anything anymore thanks to all this crying wolf we’ve done in lives in which the other half of our time has been spent pretending we’re kings and queens.

Which is it?

Are things falling apart or coming together?

Why is it not considered okay for us to not be sure some days? Why can’t we just admit that oftentimes we have no idea what’s going on or why? Why don’t we just be whoever it is that we are and there spend far more of our time and intention upon making things in us, about us, around us better?

Why don’t we want better?

Because we know that people only buy tickets to shows that show that better is already here. People only want to hear those happy-endings to stories already over. They want nothing but the uplifting of their spirits as is accomplished in their being allowed to go on living inside this blanket assumption that everything’s going so well that none of us need to do all that much, change all that much, share all that much, care all that much.

No, all of us are rather content just keeping our lives to ourselves and showing forth that version that whomever we’re around wants to see while we’re around them.

Again, it’s all pretend.

It’s a show in which everyone’s all dressed up and yet most live as if they’ve nowhere else to go.

And even those who know we’ve somewhere else to go rarely say anything about it because we know it’ll sound foolish and thus be judged the same by those many who consider their Heaven is inside this place we’re in already.

And we don’t want to be considered fools, even if it is by those who are perishing.

So we all just continue to live and let die those who will probably go on living their lives pretending everything is fine until they one day look up to find that it never was. And that alongside a tongue that turns on them and dares to confess that they knew all along that it wasn’t. Or, some of us will reach the gates of Heaven assuming we’ll be welcomed in, believing we’ll be welcomed in only to also be turned away because we spent our lives like that one guy who chose to hide his master’s gold inside a hole in the ground because he considered said master a hard man to please and thus one easy to disappoint.

Neither of which should be the outcome we want!

Rather all of us should be living lives in which we can feel inside that when we get there that He will say we’ve done well. Not that we looked good. Not that we always sounded right. Not that we sure managed to please or impress a bunch of people who never cared to hear Him say the same to them. Not that we did a good job of protecting the promise that was never ours to give to begin with.

But that we put all of the truth on the table and left everything on this field of battle in what was a life we lived as if this is supposed to be a good fight rather than a good life.

And no, I’m not saying that we can’t or won’t have good lives here. Not saying that we’ll not have good times here. Just saying that good and bad aside, the ultimate point and purpose of this life is for us to find that He’s found us and then spend the rest of our time telling others that He did the same for them.

But friends, we can’t do either whenever we continue living inside all of this pretending. Because, well, there is no truth in us so long as we either keep living a lie for others to see or even keeping the truth in which we believe locked always away so that it’s not seen by those we know don’t want to see it. He calls us to spend it. To use it. To do something with it but unto the benefit of those around us and too then the benefit of us also. And that in that the more we do that’s just open and honest and always unafraid of reprimand or judgment, it’s all done as if we care only to the please the One for whom we do it.

We’re not here to live our lives as if only acts in some play. We’re not here to hide behind masks and costumes that so many choose to wear to keep others from seeing that they’re worried or weary. We’re definitely not here to conceal the riches of His redemption inside of souls somehow still scared to let others know that we’ve been shown to lives immeasurably improved from those we once lived.

We’re instead here to live for Him as openly and honestly and unashamedly as we can.

Will we always get that right?

Absolutely not.

But can’t we at the very least try?

That’s the problem with all of these lies we allow for in our lives. It’s that all of our trying is often done only to hide something from someone. It’s to pretend we’re rich even though we know we have nothing. It’s to pretend we have nothing while around those who want nothing to do with the kind of riches we have so that we don’t risk making them feel bad about how they don’t want anything any better. It’s to pretend that we have it all figured whenever we don’t know what we’re doing or to pretend that we don’t know what we’re doing even though we know the One who’s told us what to do.

Why the ruse?

Why, in a world in which everything’s always made to be black and white, except that for some reason it seems that white is always black and black is sometimes white, why can’t we just be the boring gray? Why can’t we just say what the Truth asks us to say, do what He calls us to do, lose what He asks us to lose and fight to gain what all He’s promised we can?

Why do anything else?

Because, honestly, what does pretending ever accomplish? Anything gained by telling a lie is but a lie itself. Anything we agree to hide will stay hidden until we change our minds. And until we change our minds our lives cannot change. And if we don’t change our lives then we will die in our sins and the blood of those we were here to help will be on our hands, on our heads because not only did we do nothing with the Truth that came to set us free, not even for ourselves, but we then didn’t dare live to tell anyone else about the riches that are His redemption either.

All because we’ve all become convinced that life is all about either what we have as is wanted by everyone else or hiding what we believe in from everyone we know doesn’t want to know about it.

In short, most of what we do is only done to please people, even if it’s only ourselves.

But friends, none of us, ourselves included, none of us get to determine the outcome of our lives. So why then do we determine to live inside all of these lies that keep us feeling as if we have to both rehearse lines and rewrite scenes so as to always say and show whatever it is that we all know is what the world around us wants to see and hear?

Who cares what this world wants?

This world clearly wants nothing to do with God!

Why then live to pretend that we’re here to please men? To impress them? To keep from proving a stress to them, a worry to them, a reminder to them that God doesn’t stop at the surface upon which we’ve all performed our little shows but rather that He knows our hearts and will judge our souls?

He knows who we are and too then those of us who are His.

Why not then just be who we are and live like it’s okay to be?

My point is that most here will continue ahead in lives lived always pretending to be whatever they’re not. Those who have nothing in terms of faith will pretend that they’ve got it all figured out while, sadly, those who have figured some things out thanks to faith will continue ahead scared to say anything about it. But friends, hiding the truth of who we really are can never help us to become the better that none of us are yet.

For the truth seeks to set us free, and that even from lives lived hiding or pretending or performing for people who are probably only doing the same.

This world may prefer the show but we’re not here to give them one. We’re here to live as if we know the Son in what are lives in which He’s all we care to know.

Sure, many won’t get that. Many will probably hate that. That will make is seem reasonable to hide it. But friends, hiding the riches of hope from those who have none doesn’t help anyone. Nor does pretending we have hope when we know better.

All that can ever help anybody is whenever everybody just chooses to be honest about who they are, where they are, why they either determine to stay or desire to move.

Let that be the choice we choose. Not because it’s the one the world will choose but simply because this world isn’t who we’re here to follow.

Jesus is. And, well, He left for a reason and that was to go and make ready our place in Heaven. So let’s live as if we’ve that somewhere better to be and let the world go on pretending that they either don’t want to be there or that they’ve already found it here.

Yes, leave the dead to bury their dead as all of them choose to die playing pretend.

We’ve got lives to live and that only doing what He called us to do, which, if you didn’t know, is walk in the truth rather than hide it or pretend we define it.

#LeaveNoSoulUntold