Forged By Faith

Job 15:31 NIV Two birds in a bush We’re told that such are worth as much as one held within the hand, a lesson leant toward our learning to be grateful for what we have rather than wishing for the more that we don’t. And agreed, I do agree that we do indeed need that sort of gratitude and gratefulness for all we’re given in our lives for a life lived without appreciation for what you’ve been given is a life bound to remain a victim of want and wish and the hurried worry which seethes from the both. Failing to be thankful for what we have only shows forth an arrogance which seems to assume it deserves more simply because it wants the same. Not the way to spend this thing that we call life. But what I fear is that, such as with that adage we discussed yesterday, there may be more layers to peel away from this one as well as, well, what if the one bird we hold in the hand is but a fake, a phony, a picture, a portrait, a painting so lonely that to look at it from any angle other than that ...

Jonah 2:8 NIV What have we missed? As I get older I find myself more and more convinced of some of the sheer nonsense that we’ve come up with seeking to assure ourselves that our mistakes, our wrong choices, our past fears and present worries aren’t wasting for us opportunities that we may well never have again. Such ideas as this common adage you see tossed around from time to time that tells us that “we’re not strong enough to ruin God’s plans for us.” It’s a most hopeful outlook to be sure and indeed one in which I do believe as I do believe that His will will be done and there’s not a single thing anyone can do to change it. But again, as life goes on and we continue getting plenty of things quite willfully wrong within it, well, seems I’m pretty certain that while we may not be strong enough to ruin God’s plans for us, time will prove that we are well stupid enough to spend a good portion of our lives running away from them. And in truth this is something we’ve all chosen, again w...

Ecclesiastes 2:20 NIV A hopeless design That is sadly what it seems we’re all sure to find as having become the very foundations of our every life. Why? Because to despair is indeed to be here. It seems every day anymore that all we seem to see is that tomorrow has something better in store as our each and every today only seems to show up and all but instantly steal away whatever meager measure of hope or happiness we may have dared to try and have. Simply because it seriously seems as if the entire world is against such things. Rather it seems to me that we all seemingly agree that such outlooks as anger and fear are far more apt to help us find whatever it is that we’re looking for in life. Problem is that we don’t even stop to reconsider what as, well, we’ve not the time to allow such doubt into our mind. No, rather time’s a matter always measured in how fast it’s wasting any time that we’re not stuck chasing after whatever it is that our blind belief in it making our lives better ...

Ecclesiastes 2:17 NIV A life wasted And that upon so much that exists only under the sun that someday, when the sun’s sat, we’ll all look up from all for which we’d toiled and tried only to find that it was all just a lie. For our every life and our every understanding standing presently inside the same is nothing but a confusion designed inside a delusion that continues to demand the very dilution of any and every devotion to anything that isn’t as devoid of meaning as everything is that we’re still here seeing as having so much worth that we still assume that we can buy for our life a meaning. Because the world sells it on shelves now. And we buy it, both all the junk and all the lies that have convinced us we need it. We give our lives and all that is within them, all for which we could use them, all for which we were created to use them to so many other things instead of anything for which they were made. Because surely we don’t truly believe as strongly as it sure seems we might i...

Matthew 23:5 NIV On second thought EVERYTHING we do is done in vanity. It’s not just our approaches to faith, belief, worship or wisdom that are anymore given over to being nothing more than performances put on from stages so as to be seen by those who we believe are watching us, looking unto us to lead them in the way they should go. No, in truth we even worship ourselves in vain! It’s not just God who’s getting the leftovers of an arrogance so wide and deep and high that hell will struggle to hold it all. Even we are victims of our own ego-driven intentions which are themselves clear derivatives of what is a devotion only unto ourselves. And even that is only skin deep! Indeed, it seems that all we know how to be are but these surface swimmers who’ve plenty of ability and opportunity to dive far deeper into everything we do, and yet do still so little and only that for what amounts to only praise from people. Again, mostly only ourselves! In fact I dare say that we’re each so pleased...