Are you familiar with the idea of a pain threshold? Some people seem better able to cope with discomfort and endure it. This term is normally used in relation to physical pain, but not all pain is physical. Do you realize there is also an emotional pain threshold? If you answer my call to follow me you will suffer rejection as well. Come and join me outside the camp and bear my reproach. There is no nerve affected by this experience, but who can deny that it hurts to receive rejection in the places you would normally expect support? If you have a high emotional pain threshold you will continue to move forward in the integrity of your destiny even though it hurts. 

Do you experience fear concerning anticipated disruptions and transitions in your life? You have been through many of these already. Have you found that that actual transition is less traumatic than you anticipated? I tell you not to worry about tomorrow, for sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof. You may be worried about tomorrow because you aren’t prepared for the challenges of tomorrow today. But you don’t need to face them today. Can you trust me that I will provide everything you need when the time comes? If you can accept this premise then you can have peace now and also when the transition comes.

Were you encouraged as a child to always do your best? Do you always do the best that you can? Do you think other people do their best? You are not in a position to make this judgment about others and may not be as accurate in assessing yourself as you think. So it comes down to a question about whether you want to make moral judgments of others that are more gracious or more severe. You are subject to limitations that may not be obvious, but manifest in your behavior, and others are in the same situation. It is more gracious to assume that they are giving you their best than that they are intentionally mean, thoughtless, or slothful.

Have you ever seen the way a three-year-old child forms an attachment to a particular item, such as a toy or a dish of a certain color, and they are heavily invested in it? This is not an object held with a sense of grace. The dynamics of attachment are obvious, and a more mature person will not grasp it so tightly. Do you see your own life as a progression of letting go? Is there anything that you still grasp? I said that you must become childlike to enter the Kingdom of God, not childish. I call you to examine yourself. One of the main things to consider is the attachments you would benefit from releasing.