Day 4258 of the 7 day Bible verse challenge.

Isaiah 14:14 NIV

A godless goal

Many have been the plans of man and most of them have come to this conclusion that’s almost always wrapped within this delusion that has us all down here doing only always whatever we want as if we’ve the power, the authority to determine it good. We truly love this idea that we all have as to our own ability, our own importance, our own support and how much it can accomplish. And we’ve followed this idea to some truly extreme extremes, even the thinking of things such as the consideration considered here in this verse for today.

That we so know how to do this our way and want so badly only always the same as our way is the one that makes the most sense as it finds us the ones who profit most in the end, that we then not only have to but in fact can contend with Him who created these lives and gave us the gift that is this chance to live them.

Yes, we’ve all of us fallen for this contention against the very God of Heaven thinking that we could do better.

But friends, what do we gain by thinking there is no God?

What do we stand to profit should our pride’s preference of our being the lone authority in our lives turn out to be as true as our ego will always hope it is? What is the promise waiting to be paid upon a people who do actually prove that they alone are the highest voice of everything from reality to reason? What do we benefit by believing that if there is a God that, instead of it being He who has created all we see, is rather only you and me who’ve done to all He’s created all we can see instead?

If any of us have ever made even a single mistake, then what is there to make us think that we need to be of the ability to rival the One who hasn’t?

I reckon the issue is that we don’t think like that. Rather we’re much more the small, local, short-term considerers of a life we continue to see as some sort of endless adventure in which there’s never anything of risk but always only reward. We take each day we’re given and seek to squeeze from it only whatever we want it to hold. And so we come unto this insistence that it’s our intentions that will accomplish always what’s best because, well, in a way it has.

And that way is that, yeah, most things haven’t gone too bad. Sure, we’ve all had our pains and problems along the way. We’ve all felt disappointment, faced danger, endured darkness and perhaps even wandered a bit too close to utter despair a time or twenty. But generally life as we live it usually goes fairly good. And that, seemingly at least, because we’re the ones who are living it making all of our little choices and decisions within it, each of which really does seem to flow from whatever it is that we are then almost justified in thinking we know or can do or imagine or accomplish or achieve or become all by ourselves.

Indeed, I sit here on this cold floor this morning and do so surrounded by things that I’ve both wanted and managed to find, managed to afford, managed to receive, managed to frame, managed to hang, and now get to enjoy.

Did I do it all?

My family and I moved into a house last April after a long decade spent living in various apartments (definitely not recommended!). And immediately after doing so I determined to start a little business. My initial intention was founded upon the hope that I might be able to get three or four, maybe even five or six yards that I could mow to help out a bit more than I’d been able to. I now have over 20 that I mow weekly, two push mowers, three weed eaters, a zero turn BadBoy, a desperation for a truck that’s growing every single day and more work than I often know what to do with.

Did I accomplish all this?

Roughly ten years ago I decided to finally do something that I’d always wanted to and wondered if I could. I was tired of not feeling good, not looking good, not living good. Tired of being obese, running out of breath climbing the stairs, being forced to find my clothes in the big and tall section. So I hit the gym, changed my diet, lost my mind into the extremes of it all and lost over 130 pounds and am living an entirely different life here on this side.

Was that all achieved only because I wanted it to be?

I think back about so many things that I’ve done, experienced, seen, witnessed, felt, found, held and hoped to be and, indeed, all of it is reality. It’s all real. I really did do all of that, see all of that, feel all of that, find all of that.

But did I do it all alone and thus on my own?

See, this is the lonely place that pride takes us. It manages to convince us that we’re the ones who accomplish all the things we experience in life. It tells us that life is the sum of all we’ve done, all we’ve wanted, all we’ve won. It convinces us that we’re the ones who make things happen, who both determine whatever it may be that we might hope for and indeed are the ones who make our every hope come true.

All because pride cannot see its own need. Pride cannot see that it is weak. Pride cannot imagine that it has no ability to even imagine all of these good things that we may have experienced in our lives if it weren’t for the fact that we’ve all a Father who calls us His son or daughter and does so whilst doing for us all that allows us to live these vastly amazing lives that we get to live.

It’s not us. We’re not the ones. Nothing that has happened in our lives, no matter how much of a hand we may have had within it, none of it has come about because we willed it into reality.

Might seem that way sometimes. But friends, as much as we may love the lie that tells us that these are our lives, that we had nothing to do with the fact that we’re here should always be enough to always instill in us a humility that leaves the idea of being divine to He who is.

And we’re not Him.

And, honestly, we shouldn’t want to be. For again, what would we gain if we were? How would we be better off if we were truly a god? What benefit would it bring were you and I the only ones who knew everything, could do everything, were then responsible for everything? Friends, there are days when our minds are so scattered over lives so often shattered that we forget to turn the oven on to cook our own dinner.

Yet we’re the ones that we feel best about trusting in regard to such things as life and the hope that we’ll live it forever?

Indeed, would we even have that hope of there wasn’t a God to know? What would our version of Heaven hold? Where would it be? Who would we allow in? Or would it just be us all by ourselves and that probably only wherever we happen to be? For that’s usually how it seems that we enjoy living these lives. Just us calling all the shots, seeking all the glory, enjoying all the gain, avoiding all the pain and always passing the blame whenever something doesn’t go our way.

Yes, whenever we have a bad day it’s always someone else’s fault. It’s the guy who cut us off in traffic and made us late to work. It’s the kid who made our burger wrong. It’s the mailman who put our mail in another person’s mailbox. It’s the little old lady in the store that’s taking entirely too long to decide what she wants from the meat counter.

There’s always someone for us to judge because they’re in our way of doing our thing in what we think still is our life that we’re responsible for always making sure goes just right.

And yet we’re still not the ones who determined that we should be alive.

What then would we gain if He wasn’t there who did?

You see, we all love this idea that we all but daily get in our heads that continues to so easily convince that we can do just as good a job as He does, and that with no reason to show any appreciation nor humility even. Indeed, we love to believe that we can rival Him, stand eye-to-eye with Him, compete with Him and, moronically, manage to win.

But friends, what if we could?

How would our lives be better if we really could ascend to the heavens and raise our thrones above His and prove that we’re better at this than even He is? Sure, we’d then get all the glory from our story. We’d be then the ones who were found deserving of eternal life and all the enjoyment we could find along the way. We’d be they who bathed in popularity and power and prestige. We’d deserve the highest seats and all the honor that anyone could ever give.

But what would we gain?

My point is that we’ve managed to get it in our brains that we don’t need Him but that rather we can either be Him or beat Him. And we enjoy this idea because it both makes us feel as special and important as we’ve always wanted to think we were but it also alleviates that whole humility part of our problem. It would find us justified in how unbothered we so usually are by such things as righteousness and responsibility. It would set us free from having to adhere to the rules and laws and thus expectations of another.

It would leave us as the ones who defined what was good and thus how we always were just that and thus had nothing to fear in terms of cost or consequence.

But I don’t think we ever stop to think what would happen if we were really in His place.

Because, while we may love to think that we can make things happen and determine always the best outcome, the fact is that we’re weaker than we imagine, more foolish than we care to consider, able to forget things, mess things up, even be found mistaken or having misunderstood something.

We are not what we so often try to think we are.

But friends, that’s a very good thing!! And that’s because we don’t need to be Him. We don’t need to find a way or figure it all out on our own. We don’t need to be the ones who always get it right or act as if we do. We don’t need to be kings and queens but instead we can be just kids who run and play and eat and drink and sing and dance and believe and imagine and that in the improbable, the impossible, the seemingly illogical.

How is that not a better life than that one in which we seek to bear the burden of our always proving that we know always what we’re doing?

I don’t want to be the one in control because, well, it sucks! It’s tiring. It’s boring. It’s literally self-limiting. And, well, I’m just over that. Indeed, I’ve had it on my heart for months now that I’ve managed to back myself into so many corners seeking after so many extremes that I literally almost don’t know how to laugh anymore. I’m rapidly forgetting what happy feels like. I’m always so busy trying always to perfect my life that I’ve all but stopped living it and just exist in it.

Just last night I told God that I miss the simplicity of that life I once knew in which I could listen to music without feeling guilty about it, when I could watch a movie without worrying about what dumb thing the main actor had said, where I could eat things that I haven’t eaten in years because I’m scared they make me gain all that weight back, when I didn’t sit here writing a post every day about His Word and feeling like I was getting it wrong all the time.

We make life so complicated in all of our trying to prove that we’re the best ones to know what to do and that it’s always on us to do it all best.

Maybe we are, but friends, where does that leave Him?

I get it, we love the idea of taking His place because would we could then we could stop worrying about trying to please Him or having to praise Him. We wouldn’t have to worry about His promises of punishment and that it comes in the bitter end of His call unto righteousness and repentance whenever we miss it. We’d be finally free to do whatever we wanted to.

But everything would rely so heavily on us that it would be only us we could look to for whatever we might need.

And, again, none of us gave ourselves these lives.

So what then would we truly find if we could find a way to all but erase God from the picture?

And sure, we might not see that that’s what we’re doing. But friends, if we’re trying to be Him, to beat Him, to better Him, then aren’t we really only saying that we don’t think we need Him?

I guess what I’m trying to say is that while we’re all down here working so hard to prove that we can do this all alone all He’s doing is quietly asking that we stop working so hard to prove something that’s both impossible and utterly illogical. We cannot rival Him. We can refuse Him. We can reject Him. We can overcomplicate Him to the point in which we literally just don’t want even the idea of Him.

But what do we gain if there either is no God or we are one?

Sure, that might sound fun for now as it would really allow all of us to go on ahead doing only whatever we want as if consequence isn’t a thing. But if that were the case then reward wouldn’t be a thing either. Rather, if we were gods then we’d be truly of the ability to determine the best of everything and find always the same. And thus it would be on us to do so.

I’ve tried to.

And, well, I’ve failed far more often than I ever wanted to.

Pretty sure then that it’s not on me to be He but rather only to appreciate Him who I am not. And yeah, that might seem far less fun than our pride continues to offer. But friends, as fun as it might be to think that we’re gods who control everything, having to actually control everything is a job we’re not made for. We were made to live these lives, not determine them. And until we both understand and appreciate that difference, well, neither will we have any idea what peace is.

And that’s because peace and pride do not coincide. Rather they each only exist once the other’s finally died.

Which one do you want to lose? Which loss promises the best reward?

I’d personally rather lose pride and find peace and that because I’ve tried it the other way and, fun and exciting and enjoyable as it may be, it is utterly lonely and incredibly dull.

Because pride relies on me and in that there is no peace.

Sadly that’s the path we’ve all known. But hopefully we’ll stop building for the stars and learn to simply be grateful that He put them there for us to see because until we do, well, we’ll not be able to enjoy the show. Rather we’ll be still all alone living a life toward a godless goal in which we alone are our every hope in what remain lives in which we’re just too busy to stop and see all He’s doing that never asked us to do anything other than believe and be grateful for the opportunity to be.

#LeaveNoSoulUntold