From the moment of conception, not one mortal will cross over into immortality without facing distress. None of us is beyond reproach, even Jesus suffered the infirmity of distress, and God repented making man; so, establish yourself with high regard and stop acting like this is about you. IT IS NOT…It is just life, and life is not meant to be perfect or staid, because LIFE must be lived as we go along.

The purpose of life is to move you from place to place, through all the changing seasons of time and circumstance, from glory to glory…from mortality into immortality, and in one way or another we have to travel the Via Dolorosa…because the way of the cross leads home. So live, learn, and pass it on.

Three of the hardest lessons that I have had to learn in life are the simplest means to peace, love and unity:

(1) Do not personalize the problem.

(2) Take responsibility for your actions and hasten to make amends.

(3) Turn your pain into passion, and push past the pain into purpose.

Once I got an A+ in those three subjects, I was well on my way to living my life by design, vicariously through faith in Jesus Christ and not from crisis to crisis, under a parasol of peace, giving credence first to God’s word, and trusting always in the Lord and the power of his might to lead me out of darkness into his marvelous light. So, now, I commit this, and every waking moment of my life, to operating in obedience according to the knowledge of the power and the will of God, knowing without hesitation that there is nothing that can come against me that has not been orchestrated him or permitted in accordance with his divine ordinance.

This is a test. It is only a test, and until time eternal, this too shall pass; for this testing is not that I might fail, but that I might prove what the good and acceptable will of God is – in my life, and the lives of those whom he has called me to sojourn with — or without. Nevertheless, I grieve that this part of me must die in the wilderness, even as I look steadfast to an expedient waning of this inebriated spirit and aspire to the acquiescence a new level of keen spiritual awareness and an increase in the number of days that I can spend under a parasol of peace.

dematthew – 07/17/08 – © More Perspectives