To overcome “walking paralysis,” we at some point have to stop trying to impress God, others, and ourselves and trust that they might simply love us for ourselves instead of for our accomplishments of who we pretend to be. Faith is listening to and letting God and others move us away from old paralyzed ways to new ways of loving each other.

We forget that Jesus said that the kind of peace he gives to humans is very different from the world's version of peace. The peace of Jesus Christ is not anesthesia that numbs but a disturbing peace that makes us look ourselves and fellow humans in the eyes.

UNLESS WE WITH GOD'S HELP MASTER STRENGTH NAVIGATION, THEN WE WILL BECOME VICTIMS OF OUR MUSCLES, MOUTHES, AND BRAINS.

Perhaps the most important thing we need to ask ourselves in life is not have I won or succeeded, but have I grown. It's funny how nothing seems to succeed like failure in helping people to grow. When things are going our way, there is no reason or time to take stock of what our way of life is doing to us and people around us. An occasional brick wall is never fun, but they may be that which makes us stop, check priorities and relationships, and make changes.

The pain we experience in our living may very well be the point at which we will come closest to God's presence in our lives. The pain points may be the contact points with God that get us closer to who we need to be for God, for others, and last, but not least who we need to be for ourselves.

It is tragic that we too are often so busy looking for happiness and the end of the rainbow with stuff and status that we miss the quite simple and close ways, namely people, through whom God gets his love to us daily.