What do you think that bravery and strength consist of? Do you think the bravest and strongest never back down? This is accepted conventional wisdom, but you may have observed from my teachings that I turned conventional wisdom upside down. I said that the first would be last, and the greater would serve the lesser. In this context, would the first one to apologize in a dispute be showing more bravery and strength than the one who was last to reconcile? Is the one who is first to value reconciliation over their own position the more courageous?

Do you think of medicine as pills produced by big pharmaceutical corporations? Have you ever been healed by something that wasn’t medicine in this narrowest sense? Then it was medicine for you. There are many dimensions for healing. Can you see how many ways you have received healing? What about being a healer yourself? In this broadest possible sense, what type of medicine do you provide for others? Let your imagination run on this to see the gifts that I have given you for healing, and be aware of them, and employ them with deliberate intention for effect. 

Have you noticed that when people have a heavy emotional burden to carry, they often feel drawn outdoors to deal with it? Have you experienced this yourself, that the world of my creation is the only place large enough to hold your grief? Have you seen the same pattern in the scripture, that those who had encounters with me did so outdoors? There were fewer enclosed structures then than there are now, but it is still a valid principle. Wasn’t my ministry done outdoors? There are issues to deal with outside the camp. If you are facing something like this I will meet you there.

Do you want your children to question their faith? If you went to a lot of work to raise them up in the way they should go then you might be reluctant to see them call their faith into question, but they will do it anyhow. What is the alternative? To lead an unexamined faith that has not been tested? Would you want this for them? They will not become my disciples with a faith that they have not contended for. It will be painful for you to watch them wrestle with me, but who do you expect to win? Consider the history of those who wrestle with me.