Are you familiar with the peace that surpasses understanding? Have you experienced it? Do you prefer a serene and comfortable life that is stable and predictable? If you are able to live such a life you should be at peace but this would be a reasonable consequence of such a life so it does not surpass understanding. If you live a life that involves affliction, and instability, and is unpredictable and you still experience peace then you can claim that it surpasses understanding, because it would be unexpected. Are you willing to live such a life to experience this type of peace?

Have you ever attended a meeting run by parliamentary rules? Business is conducted by the resolution of motions considered. A motion must have a second before it can be considered, otherwise it dies for the want of a second. The second does not alter the motion presented, it just affirms it. How do you view your life of prayer? Do you prefer to introduce your own motions or second motions that I have made? Is it important to you to pray according to my will?

You go to the store and expect to pay a price for the goods you buy. You consider your purchases and get those things that you value more than the money in your pocket. Are there other things for which you pay a price? Do you have an urge to belong? This is common to all people. Do you realize that belonging comes at a price? Any group that you would join requires accommodation to their values. So the same concept of benefit for cost is present in your associations as well as your purchases. Are you getting real community and acceptance in the places you belong?

Are you familiar with the story of Jacob, who camped at a random place in his travels because he ran out of daylight? He didn’t think of it as a special place so he was quite surprised when he encountered me during the night. He woke up astonished and said, you were here all along and I never knew it. Do you hold the doctrine of omnipresence? This would have been too sophisticated for Jacob, but it is common today. Yet you can hold sophisticated doctrines as abstract concepts. Has the reality of my presence ever surprised you in a place where you least expected it?