Do you ever wish that things would get back to normal? There is a natural longing for the stable, predictable, and familiar. Yet this desire does not work in your favor, and a closer examination reveals why it is undesirable. Normal implies a static condition in which there is no change, growth, or progress. You are comfortable with familiar conditions, and uncomfortable with the unfamiliar. Yet it is under these conditions that growth occurs. Your comfort zone is not large enough for your life and your destiny.

Even for those who are already in prison, those in charge have the ability to impose more strict punishments. One of these is solitary confinement, keeping a prisoner isolated even from other prisoners, and this is considered a harsh penalty. This is a testimony of the power of my statement that it is not good for the man to be alone. It is better to be assigned any other prisoner as a cell mate than to be alone. Have you ever been alone even if it wasn’t externally imposed as a punishment? Have you observed others in isolation of their own making?

Do you have an inner sanctum and an outer platform? You need some way to spend time with me for your own sanity and mental and spiritual cohesion, if nothing else. Could you survive without this direct connection? What do you gain by maintaining this relationship? Do you get more than just enough to hold yourself together? Do you also get wisdom and insights and encouragement that you can pass on to others? What do you do when you leave your secret place? Do you have a platform and audience from which you can pass along that which you have received? First you need a light.

Do you learn by reading? Do you tell your friends about the things you learn in books that they too may benefit from the knowledge? Is there anything that you have read that you don’t have the right to declare? The freedom of speech means that you can say whatever you want, but have you ever heard someone say something that they got from reading only, with no life experience to back it up? How much impact does this message have? Consider the multitudes that marveled that I spoke with authority and not as the scribes and Pharisees. This is not to discourage you from reading.