Are you quick to form your first reaction to situations you encounter? Are your first reactions full of mercy, grace, and love, or they more judgmental? Your reactionary brain is eager to provide answers and make connections that are immediate and wrong. Have you found that it takes intentional effort to stay engaged and take a more gracious look, and think of more benign explanations for what you see? So if you stay engaged, you can come up with more than one explanation. Which one is correct? Do not assume that you need to resolve every issue.

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.