real in a world of fake

Sometimes in my daydreams I look at the world around me and it feels so surreal, like I’m in another dimension, an outside perspective. What is this hampster wheel? Who are we and what are we doing? Everything is just ticking, moving, pacing, rushing. I have to just stop and look around in disbelief. Sometimes it blows my mind how preoccupied we all are with our little messes.

I look at how different we all are, the paths we choose to take. Both sides of free will: the beauty and the pain. I think about the choices I have made, my lapses in judgement, my mistakes. I think about the mistakes to come. Where I am now and where I’m going.

I look at the things we value, the things we invest our lives in, the things we devote our hearts to. I think about my possessions. The things I spend my “hard-earned” money to buy so that I can look at them and feel good. The things that, in a matter of years, will break, fall apart, and turn to dust.

I think about my life, the life that could end tomorrow, in three weeks, or fifty years from now. Either way, the life that won’t last. I think about time, always moving forward, the dates and years that will never be again. I think about all that has come before me that I never saw, and the things to come that I will never see. Even as the seconds pass, I can’t get them back.

I marvel at the machines, buildings, art, languages, and literature that we humans have developed and mastered. I am in awe of the God-given gifts that people possess to be able to create so much. The masterpieces that are filled with light and color and evidence of the Divine. The strong and beautiful shelters we’ve built up to keep the elements far away. The things that seem so indestructible and permanent but with time, will weather and crumble.

I look at the distractions of this world – money, status, materialism – every thing that people use to fill the void. The idols we create because we have a natural inclination to worship. I think about the problems we get tangled in and the things we fret about. The worries that take up all of my energy one moment and are forgotten in the next.

I am not one of those exhausting existential types but sometimes I just feel like I am floating outside the hustle bustle of reality, looking in. How could anyone accept this life and this creation as something unremarkable and coincidental? It’s just so weird to me that so many of us don’t stop to question what we’re doing here.

I am continually in a state of awe and bewilderment at this world. I am constantly thinking about everything around me, every aspect, every detail, every unknown, every reality, every soul, every miracle, every beautiful thing.

What lasts in this world?

What is real?

What is eternal?

What is true?

God lasts, God is real, God is eternal, God is true.

There’s nothing in this world that lasts, there is nothing worth our adoration outside of God. There is nothing that withstands except for our God and the souls of His people. Isn’t it amazing and awe-inspiring? When I think like this, I am reminded that I want to always invest only in the things that last and in the God that loves! He is Alpha and Omega and He should take precedence in my life. Here’s to getting closer to living like this.

The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of our God stands forever.
Isaiah 40:7

Set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things.
Colossians 3:1-2

Trust in the Lord forever,
for the Lord, the Lord, is the Rock eternal.
Isaiah 26:4

What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul?
Matthew 16:26

Lord, I ache for the real thing, just a taste.
You’re something real in a world of fake.

You are the way, You’re the real thing.