Life is a challenge. To live is to take risks. This is a reality all must face. From conception to death, we face this reality. One we come to terms with this reality, that life is a warfare, we transcend it or rise above the stumbling blocs or obstacles we encounter on life's journey to becoming. It is crucial to understand that we cannot escape difficulties in life. What matters is what we do with it. Knowing that life is tough and full of challenges is half the battle, the rest is how to navigate these obstacle that we encounter.
Most individuals are not equipped to face the difficulties of life. Instead they groan, complain, and moan incessantly, noisily or subtly about the enormity of their problems, burdens or difficulties and obstacles they face whether in their families, tribe, culture, race, class, nation and interestingly enough it is the noise about gender and species. These groaners and moaner want the whole world to pay for their lot in life. I know about this groaning and moaning because I have done my fare share of doing so.
Life is a battle field, and those who girt their loins for this battle, come out victorious. We read in the gospel of Matthew 11:12 "the Kingdom of heaven suffers violence and the violent have taken it" and again Job 7:1"The life of man upon earth is a warfare, and his days are like the days of a hireling" All of these sums it up, don't expect to ride through life on a bed of roses, and"Four noble truths" which Buddha taught was "Life is suffering"
Discipline is the basic set of tools needed to solve life's difficulties or the stumbling blocs which sometimes tend to derail us. Without discipline we cannot resolve these issues that plague us.
What is it that makes life difficult? We lack the tools to process, confront and ultimately deal with them. Depending on their nature, problems can be frustrating, cause grief and sadness, anxiety, anguish and even despair. These feelings are often uncomfortable, and may even be accompanied by physical pain. These are the problems we must face in daily living. Life is encountering a series of conflicts, stemming from human weakness, (self) the world and its vanities (world) and those spiritual or diabolical warfare (devil or evil one).
Yet in all of these, we are more than conquerors. St. Paul writes in his letter to the Romans 8:31-39. 'What, then, shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? 32 He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? 33 Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. 34 Who then is the one who condemns? No one. Christ Jesus who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. 35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword?36 As it is written:“For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.”[a]37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons,[b] neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39 neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in
Christ Jesus our Lord.
It is this entire process of meeting , encountering, tackling and resolving problems that makes life meaningful. Problems are the source and root of purification and growth. The ability to face them squarely is what sets one apart and distinguishes between success and failure. Problems brings forth the best of us, we grow in virtues such as courage, wisdom, understanding, patience and mostly humility and charity. We grow in wholeness, holiness. This is the secret of attaining health of body, mind and soul. It is within the human capacity to tackle life's problems, and to do this we must begin as children. From childhood, parents should encourage children to to solve problems. It is by confronting and encountering difficulties and obstacles that they learn the important life lessons of dealing with failure, set backs and pain. As Benjamin Franklin said, "Those things that hurt, instruct." The wise for this reason are not filled with dread at impending difficulties, rather they welcome it as it is a source of growth.
No comments:
Post a Comment