Forged By Faith

Galatians 6:9 NIV What is persistence? Is it a person with an almost personal vendetta against compromise? Is it a personal resolve to never allow any single hope to dissolve? Is it a deep-seated belief that there’s always something better we can see, something more we can be, something we can do in order to make it through whatever we have to in order to see that better we can be? Is it knowing in your heart that, despite everything only continuing to fall apart, that at some point it’ll prove to all fall into place? Is it a place we go inside our minds in which all we find is a violent unwillingness to quit? Is it the purpose of patience? Is it a byproduct of a patience’s purpose? Sadly, if anything, it seems to be something many here are forgetting. And that likely because, well, yeah, doing literally anything is wearying. Doing anything is tiring. Doing anything demands an almost exhaustive amount of everything from hope to effort to belief to trust and that in both we as us but so...

1 Peter 1:8 NIV What is patience? Is it perhaps painful as proven in the past in which we’d waited for things to come that maybe never did? Is it quite heavy in the present as still we wait for what we hope are days better than these we’re in? Is it something of a stranger which always seems a danger as it’s designed inside a mind willing to risk settling for whatever is for whatever isn’t yet? Is it a curiosity that can’t stop considering the gravity of the reality that yet isn’t? Is it a matter of reality that, though we all really don’t enjoy, is perhaps there to help us learn better what enjoyment is so that we can experience it more fully whenever we get wherever it waits? Is it something that only we have to endure or maybe something that others endure on our part too? Is it true that it’s hard, scary, oftentimes somewhat deflating? Yes, but I suggest that this may be patience’s biggest benefit as, well, in truth we need that more than we could ever know inside what is this hole ...

1 Peter 1:7 NIV What is scarcity? Is it something seen so seldomly that it’s all but almost scary whenever it is? Is it a matter of such mystery that in truth nobody really knows where it is, what it is and thus has little idea as to how it looks or of what it feels? Is it a feeling of something being so rare that even when we do see it, feel it, hear it there we feel still this still chill as the doubt inside demands we deny be it might? Is it something that indeed might not be seeing as how it is so rare to see and hard to hold? Is it even something many if any of us can know considering it’s something which itself may exist here all alone? Is it a loan of what is a hope that hasn’t a price and thus can’t be bought nor then sold as none knows of what it’s worth as it may well be the only of its kind upon this earth? Is it a matter meant to be measured by this earth and the many things which do exist within a plenty within this place, and that over against the immeasurably more which ...

1 Peter 4:12 NIV What is ubiquity? Is it not a circumstance of such common familiarity that it is in fact a clear commonality? Is it, being such a common commonality, is it still something that comes sometimes by surprise? Is it, because of its tendency to prove still surprising despite its obvious commonality, something that we should still welcome a fear of and thus hesitancy toward? Is it always bad to be surprised, even though certain things shouldn’t be at all surprising? Is it any surprise that we all act always surprised whenever there does come something in life that we do not elsewise even pretend to enjoy? Is it common to seek for only our enjoyment of everything despite most everything proving decidedly far from enjoyable? Is it wise to see still all but all of life through these rose-tinted lies that have us convinced that all of life’s contents should consider our opinions and their pretense? Indeed, why are we so always tense in what are lives that are in fact quite inten...