If you were interviewing applicants for a position, and the future of the world depended on getting the right person, who would you choose? If one applicant said, I had a dream and then I went out and did exactly as the dream directed without consulting anyone, and then I had another dream, and carried it out as before, and so on. Would you hire this person? I did. Joseph who stood in as my father on earth had to be able to accept divine direction apart from the religious establishment of his generation, for actions that were not explainable in any familiar context.

Has the Bible become familiar to you? Have the stories lost their impact because you grew up with them and have heard them so many times? Would you agree with the statement that if you are not shocked by what you read in the Bible then you don’t get it? Consider the impact that these stories had on the original audience. For instance, the story of the prodigal son. This story is really about the Father. Can you imagine a father giving in to the younger son’s request in the first place, knowing how it would end, and then welcoming him back with a celebration when it did?

Do you sing? Do you look at the Psalms as something to read or something to sing? You can read them, but they were meant as a songbook. You can read the lyrics to any song, but would you agree that their true meaning and impact only comes to life expressed in melody? That is their purpose, and their essence is lacking if they are merely read. You can agree with this in principle, and acknowledge the benefit of singing the Psalms rather than reading them, but do you find that you have to overcome cultural resistance to break into song? Do it anyhow, and see how it affects you.

You understand that capital usually refers to money used as an investment, but the term could be used in a broader sense to include things like emotional capital that you only have so much of to spend. Another form would be relational capital which is different in that it exists between two people or more. You have experienced this whether you described in these terms or not. You have an intuitive understanding about how much weight or disturbance a relationship can bear, and it isn’t much in the case of shallow relationships. Don’t you prefer relationships that are not fragile?