…the righteous will never be moved…
He is not afraid of bad news; his heart is firm, trusting in the Lord.
(Psalm 112:6a, 7)

Learn not the way of the nations, nor be dismayed at the signs of the heavens because
the nations are dismayed at them, for the customs of the peoples are vanity…
Every man is stupid and without knowledge… for his images are false…
They are worthless, a work of delusion…
(Jeremiah 10:2b-3a, 14a,c, 15a)

The word “vanity”, as used in the Jeremiah passage and elsewhere, pervasively, throughout scripture (e.g., especially in the well-known passages in Ecclesiastes) is translated from the Hebrew הבל, (Strong’s H1892) pronounced heh’bel, meaning: vapor, breath, emptiness, falsehood, fraud, wickedness, iniquity, misfortune, adverse circumstances, calamity. I.e., bad stuff; worldly stuff; useless stuff; stuff bound to perish and pass away; stuff that’s ultimately a waste of time, energy and attention.

On that theme, Douglas John Hall writes, in a chapter entitled, “Despair as Pervasive Ailment,” p. 85-86, in Hope for the World, ed. Walter Brueggemann, 2001, as quoted in “Unfettered Hope: A Call to Faithful Living in an Affluent Society”, by Marva J. Dawn, 2003, who in turn was referenced by Francis Chan in “Crazy Love”, 2008…

[Covert despair] is able to masquerade under a guise of well-being so persuasive as to deceive the wearers of the masks themselves. It can readily sublimate itself through the pursuit of activities that seem to emanate from highly positive attitudes toward life and the future. Human beings cannot live with a conscious, unrelieved sense of the “vanity” of their lives and endeavors. If their gods die, if their optimism is dashed by events, if the habit of hope languishes in them, they will likely construct bogus hopes out of thin air and sheer determination.

I didn’t have much else to say today. Just that I was motivated to post this out of a sense of how easy it is — in an environment of insta-news (most of it bad) and more instant-gratification channels and choices for entertainment (most of it silly) — to spin webs of self-deception that are anything but firm, immovable, or eternal.

Having touched on the Biblical idiom of the sea yesterday (near the end of this post), and in this post, on the nature of delusion, I’m reminded also of one of my very favorite passages in all of scripture, James 1:2-8, which concludes (v6-8):

…the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind. For that person must not suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.

Come ashore, people. Come ashore.

Just as day was breaking, Jesus stood on the shore; yet the disciples did not know that it was Jesus. (John 21:4)