Forged By Faith

Ecclesiastes 9:11 NIV Time and chance. One we have but so much of, and that itself running thinner all the time. For such is the overall trajectory of what is but a measuring of the mortal’s line. It’s just something that feels an almost vanity, this time measuring. Because we all know we’ve but so much with which to begin what becomes a life we’ll leave before we know it anyway. Leaving us caught always somewhere in between the time of which we have but so much and thus the chances that we then feel we must make so as to not waste too much of what we’ve not much left. Yes, time and chance each both making the other feel perhaps more significant than they would be without one another but also in some ways seeming to negate each other as well. For well, if we do have but so much time and it filled with itself and chance, then what does anything we do really matter? And yet how can anything we do fail to matter when it’s all measured by the time we give unto doing it? I mean, our time is...

John 15:22 NIV In excusable. Population: 8,211,939,609 Or at least that’s as of 3/21/2025 the likely still highly estimated if not entirely presumptuous world population. And too thus such a place as our all are living within what is a life in which it so vastly seems we all still assume we’ve seen more than reason enough to seek only the excuses that we all think excuse the inexcusable that we’ve not only continued to do but in fact all but come to be. For the reality of an existence in which those existing make any if not all of their choices, said existee is thus only to eventually be all but defined by what they do with or within their existence. And thus we are not merely sinners who’ve accidentally slipped up a few times into, by sheer happenstance, what’s since been proven a mistake or two. No, rather we are all now all but sin having chosen that way of life so very often that our very own Creator had to humble Himself at first unto breathing a Word that sought to call us back t...

John 8:34 NIV To heed the call to refuse another yoke of enslavement would at first demand a differed stand as to what we’ve never understood about just how far gone we’ve been as defined by how far He went to bring us back. And we’ve never sought to understand that as we know it would undeniably define the depth of our downfall as fallen down all around, all within, all of it all just given way all these days we’ve let slip right past our purpose in exchange for our preference for pleasure, an opinion altogether obtuse enough to have formed every bar we couldn’t bend in order to break out of this prison we couldn’t see that we alone have built of every disbelief and inability to fight beyond them for the better for which He built us. No, we’ve not the stomach for such honesty as we’ve honestly lost so much of the rest of ourselves and our souls that I suppose we shouldn’t expect to have our stomach left around either. It’s rather all been sold at rock-bottom dollar for that is the wag...

Matthew 10:35-36 NIV For to further misunderstand the severity of this salvation can only be accomplished should we miss the gravity of the gift of that which the Savior endured to achieve this road we’ve still to walk. And yet, the misery of this road as we’ve just now began to begin is already of such a weight that we’re at times unwilling to even consider walking it for as long as a life we’ve left to live as that of a life lived to leave this land we’ve come to love. Because to us, well, we like most have come to assume that salvation is supposed to bring a rather impenetrable measure of all manner of joy and peace even while still within this place. And yet we should have seen through now opened eyes by this time today that our preconceived perceptions are not as perfect as we’ve planned to plan them. Because the reality of this long road ahead is that it matters not our plans nor our preferences nor our opinions or the popularity and profit and whatever other ideal of preconceive...

Isaiah 1:5 NIV I fear we've all played the right buyer to a warped world selling the wrong life. An utter rebellion from reason! This place feeds upon our individually unique insecurities in such a way as to gain this twisted sort of control over our lives and how we live them. It's this endless attempt by our adversary to break us all down into these pint-sized bits and pieces that have no fight left inside, so that we'll obviously not dare press back against the pressures pressing in insisting we do this, become that, go there, trust them, and smile every step of this journey we never decide for ourselves. Because that's just what the devil wants. It's this plan to convince us all to absorb ourselves into a community so homogenous that none of us dare make our own choices, think our own thoughts, live our own lives. No, he's spent a lot of effort into crafting a society in which we're all altogether the same, a sea of emptiness all assuming entitlement to ...

John 6:68 NIV Kneeling here beside the many broken alters upon which I've poured out a wasted life, I look around now only to find that I've merely hidden myself from the truest love there is. And now that my cover is blown, where else might I seek refuge other than within the only hope we've ever had anyway? Where can we go to find even a fraction of what this faith is that's found us in the midst of our insane mundanity as defined by an imperial immorality such as these selfish and thus sin-filled lives? To whom might we beg a portion of the promise offered by the only One who was different enough to find a reason to come for us who wouldn't move for Him? Yes, is there any other in whom we can find the audacity to stand apart in this world all crumbling together? Because within this strange sense of senseless community from whom we've learned things like turmoil and triumph, can we find the purpose proposed by the cross? Does the way of life we've come was...