At the Heart of Discipleship

http://anchor.tfionline.com/post/heart-discipleship/

By Peter Amsterdam

Audio length: 10:56
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I’ve been meditating recently on what it means to be a disciple of Jesus. A disciple is defined as a follower of the teachings of another; someone who accepts those teachings and tries to act according to them, and who assists in spreading them. So a disciple of Jesus is a person who accepts and follows His teachings, meaning that person is an active adherent, applying the teachings to his life; and he assists in some manner in the spreading of the good news of salvation—the message of Jesus.

Believers accept Jesus’ teachings as true; they believe in Him, believe that He is their Savior, and they are saved. Jesus made it clear that belief in Him is sufficient for salvation when He said in John 3:16 that “whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” It’s a wonderful thing to be a believer! It brings with it everlasting life, eternity with God.

Walking the path of discipleship means that someone makes the choice to add actionto belief. It’s going beyond the acceptance of the teachings and involves choosing to followthe teachings, to apply them in daily living. That path leads to becoming active in spreading the teachings. The word disciple comes from the Greek word mathetes(pronounced ma-tay-teis), meaning a learner. In the New Testament the word disciple is only used in the Gospels and the book of Acts. It’s a word that shows the contrast between the teacher and the learner. It also implies that the learner is an adherent of the teachings of the teacher, that he accepts the teachings not only in belief but in life, by applying and following them.

Disciples are key to the spreading of Christianity, to fulfilling the commission Jesus gave to His first disciples, those originally tasked with bringing the good news to the world of their day. As disciples today, we are tasked with bringing the gospel to the world of ourtime.

Each instance of one person introducing Jesus into the life of another, who in turn reaches someone else, is a microcosm of the history of Christianity. Christianity continues because disciples assist in spreading the teachings of Jesus. The spiritual lineage or genealogy is carried on from person to person, generation to generation, because of those who believe, follow, and spread the teaching.

Every Christian is a distant spiritual relative of the first Christians, of those who knew Jesus, who were the first to preach the good news. They preached the gospel, they taught others, they grounded them in the faith, and then the process was repeated over and over again, century after century. Christianity exists today because those throughout history have done what Jesus taught the first disciples to do—to preach the gospel and make disciples. So the presence of disciples in the world is vital to Christianity’s continuation. Faithful witnesses can never fully know the fruit they may bear years, even generations, into the future.

A disciple is someone, famous or not, flamboyant or not, known or unknown, whobelieves the teachings of Jesus and strives to put them into practice in his or her life, which includes spreading and teaching the gospel in some manner. Disciples are incredibly important, as it’s through them that other people are introduced to Jesus and salvation. It’s through them that Christianity grows, that the gospel is preached in all the earth.
The path of discipleship

When Jesus says to forsake all that you have,1 or as it says in other English translations, “any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be My disciple” (ESV); or “any of you who does not give up everything he has cannot be My disciple” (NIV); or “none of you can be My disciple who does not give up all his own possessions” (NAU), He’s speaking of priorities.

In principle, to renounce your possessions, to give them up, to forsake them, all have to do with the question of priorities. What comes first, God or your things? As a disciple, one who is committed to loving God with all your heart, soul, and mind, the priority is God. Not your stuff, not your house, your money, your investments, but God.

Jesus isn’t recorded as asking everyone who wanted to follow Him to physically leave all of their worldly possessions. Joseph of Arimathea was both rich and a disciple. From his being called a disciple, one can conclude that he placed the right priority on his material goods in relation to God. It was this Joseph who supplied Jesus’ tomb, and who also used his position and influence to ask Pilate to release the body to him for burial.

On the other hand, the call He gave the rich young ruler was different:

“One thing you still lack. Sell all that you have and distribute to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me.” But when he heard these things, he became very sad, for he was extremely rich. Jesus, seeing that he had become sad, said, “How difficult it is for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God!”2

Why? Because often when a person has wealth, it’s harder to prioritize it in relation to God, especially if He does ask you to give it up completely, or to share your wealth with others. The rich young ruler couldn’t let his wealth go and he was saddened by that realization. His possessions were his priority.

Forsaking, renouncing, giving up, all have to do with relinquishing the claim of ownership of material goods to God; they become His, and you are simply the steward. If He asks you to leave them behind as you walk on the path of discipleship, you do so, because God is the rightful owner of all things. A disciple’s allegiance is to God, not to things. A disciple’s allegiance is to the call God gives him or her.

When Jesus says “Follow Me,” He’s speaking to you personally. The path He calls you to follow is your path of discipleship. It’s an individual path, and each follower of Jesus has a distinct path. With the rich young ruler, the path Jesus asked him to take was to sell all that He had. Someone else’s path would be to keep the material possessions and follow God’s lead in a different manner. The principle is that the disciple belongs to God, his first allegiance is to God, and he loves God enough to do what God asks of him.

A principle of discipleship is loving God in a manner that makes you willing to follow what He shows you, no matter how steep the cost. The cost may be different with different individuals. So when Jesus said, “Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple,”3 He’s talking about your own cross, your individual cross that you must carry. The call He gives you is yours, and your willingness to carry it is reflected in your readiness to give your first allegiance to God and His call for you. When He says to you, “Follow Me,” He’s asking you to put yourself into His hands, to make Him your first priority, to give up ownership of yourself, to put yourself in the rightful place in relation to God, the sovereign of all. Jesus stated the proper priority when He said:

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.4

Understanding the principle of loving God, keeping His word, and the positional relationship that God deserves in relation to the loves of this life, and the possessions we have, provides a guiding principle which can help you in the life decisions you are regularly faced with. The basic principle being that God—our Creator, our Savior, and the Spirit that dwells within us—asks for and deserves our love and the proper allegiance and place in our lives. This is the starting place of discipleship. It’s in loving Him that we take the first step of discipleship.—Peter Amsterdam

Originally published October 2011. Adapted and republished February 2015.
Read by Simon Peterson.



1 Luke 14:33 KJV.


2 Luke 18:22–24.


3 Luke 14:27.


4 Mark 12:30.

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WHY DO GOOD PEOPLE BECOME SILENT—OR WORSE—ABOUT 9/11?

http://www.ae911truth.org/news/196-news-media-events-fran-shure-part-14.html

Learned helplessness is associated with subsequent depression, anxiety, phobias, shyness, and/or loneliness.
PART 14: LEARNED HELPLESSNESS

By Frances T. Shure

Editor's Note: Frances Shure, M.A., L.P.C., has performed an in-depth analysis addressing a key issue of our time: "Why Do Good People Become Silent — or Worse — About 9/11?" The resulting essay, being presented here as a series, is a synthesis of both academic research and clinical observations.
© BY FRANCES T. SHURE, 2015


In answering the question in the title of this essay, the December 2014 segment —Prior Knowledge of State Crimes Against Democracy and Deep Politics — explored how our prior knowledge of high crimes by governments, as well as our knowledge of the deep state — as opposed to the visible public state in which we participate as citizens — influences our level of receptivity to the evidence that contradicts the official 9/11 storyline.

Here, in the January 2015 installment, we continue Ms. Shure's analysis with Part 14: Learned Helplessness, a conditioned response to trauma or adversity that involves ongoing pain as well as actual or perceived lack of control.

“I can see that 9/11 was a false flag operation, but there is nothing I can do to make a difference,” a male friend quietly admitted to me.

He is one of several friends who, in the years since September 11, 2001, have made similar remarks when I have asked them to tell me their thoughts about the evidence that refutes the official account of 9/11.

A female friend made another such statement, forcefully declaring, “If this is true about 9/11, then we’re in much worse shape than any of us have thought. This is way, way bigger than I am. In this case, perhaps evil will just need to run its course. There is nothing I can do.”

Then there was the man I met at the Denver People’s Fair, who hurried away from me to avoid any further conversation, simultaneously explaining, to my astonishment: “I agree with you that 9/11 was a false-flag operation. But this is what those in power have done to the rest of us for centuries. It will continue into the future, and there is nothing we can ever do to stop it.”

Still another acquaintance, upon hearing for the first time some of the unanswered questions surrounding 9/11, blurted out one of my favorite retorts: “What! I’ve never heard of this! Listen! If you are going to go after Sauron, you’d better be sure you have the ring!”His colorful declaration meant that without supernatural power, such an ambitious undertaking would be hopeless.1

I have long wondered if people with responses like these could be victims of “learned helplessness,” a psychological condition that was discovered by Martin E. P. Seligman and colleagues when they performed a series of brutal experiments that began with dogs as the subjects.

In the 1960s, Seligman et al subjected approximately 150 harnessed and restrained dogs to a series of 64 moderately painful and inescapable electric shocks on the first day of each trial. It didn't take the dogs long during that first phase to “learn” that they could not escape the torture. Soon they gave up trying and passively submitted to the pain, whining and sometimes rolling over in a submissive posture.

The second phase of the trial began 24 hours later. In it, the canine subjects were each put in a shuttle box, a two-sided chamber with a barrier in the middle that the dog could jump over — an action that would automatically turn off the shocks, allowing the dog to stop the pain. Additionally, a dimming light was used to signal that the next shock would come in 10 seconds, so that the dog could not only learn to escape the shocks, but could also eventually learn to avoid the shocks altogether by jumping the barrier as soon as he saw the light dim.

“Naïve” dogs, who2 had not undergone the first phase of the trial with the inescapable shocks, quickly learned to escape the shocks in the shuttle box by jumping the barrier. They also eventually learned to avoid the shocks altogether by jumping when they saw the light begin to dim.

The very first time they were shocked in the shuttle box, the dogs in both groups ran around frantically for about thirty seconds. But after that, two-thirds of the first group of canines — those who had been given the first inescapable trial — showed a strikingly different pattern from the naïve dogs. Instead of discovering they could jump to safety, these dogs gave up, lying down and quietly whining while the shocks continued for 60 more seconds, at which time the trial ended.

To the surprise of the researchers, the same two-thirds of these traumatized dogs failed to escape in all of the succeeding trials. They had “learned” to feel helpless and hopeless. In other words, they had generalized their initial inescapabletrauma, feeling trapped in all future escapable traumatic situations.

Interestingly, the other one-third of the traumatized dogs did learn to escape the shocks in the shuttle box as effectively as the naïve dogs.

Of the approximately 100 dogs that had been conditioned to learned helplessness, Seligman summarizes:

Laboratory evidence shows that when an organism has experienced trauma it cannot control, its motivation to respond in the face of later trauma wanes. Moreover, even if it does respond, and the response succeeds in producing relief, it has trouble learning, perceiving, and believing that the response worked. Finally, its emotional balance is disturbed: depression and anxiety, measured in various ways, predominate.3

The key to learned helplessness, then, is actual or perceived lack of control.4

Variations of this study, conducted by Seligman and by other researchers, have demonstrated that whether the subjects are dogs, cats, rats, fish, monkeys, or humans, being subjected to uncontrollable trauma produces a marked decrease in one’s ability to respond adaptively to future controllable trauma.

Moreover, researchers have found that learned helplessness does not have to be the result of trauma. All that is needed to affect future behavior is an inescapable adverse event, such as an uncontrollable loud noise. Uncontrollable adverse events, they have discovered, tend to decrease the subject’s motivation to escape from frustration, retard his ability to solve problems or to learn in general, and chill his normal aggressive or defensive responses to future adverse events.

Seligman and his colleagues determined that people with the learned-helplessness condition express themselves with pessimism when they explain challenging situations. Expressions such as “It will never change” . . . “It’s my fault” . . . “I’m stupid” . . . “It’s going to last forever” . . . “All teachers are unfair” . . . “Diets never work” are clues that the speaker likely suffers from learned helplessness. These words convey the learned beliefs of: 1) permanence – the bad events or circumstances he faces are permanent, not temporary; 2) pervasiveness – a failure in one area of his life will automatically pervade all aspects of his life; and 3) low self-esteem – a sense of being inherently worthless, unlovable, and talentless.5

Learned helplessness, the researchers also discovered, is associated with subsequent depression, anxiety, phobias, shyness, and/or loneliness.6

The good news, however, is that learned helplessness is reversible. Seligman et al determined, after much trial and error, that the dogs who were conditioned to feel helpless could in fact be rehabilitated through “directive therapy.” The researchers removed the barrier in the shuttle box and, after the shocks began, used a leash to drag the dogs to the other side of the box, thus forcibly removing them from the electricity. After being pulled anywhere between 25 and 200 times, all the dogs finally responded on their own. Then, when the researchers replaced the barrier and gradually built it higher, these formerly helpless dogs continued to escape the electric shocks by jumping the barrier. Their recovery from helplessness proved to be complete and lasting.

Let’s now recall that one-third of the dogs who were subjected to the inescapable shocks acted just like the naïve dogs in the shuttle box. Why were these dogs apparently immune to being conditioned to learned helplessness? The answer most likely lies in subsequent studies, which have demonstrated that animals and people who have a history of experiences with controllable trauma — in other words, trauma that they managed to master with their own efforts (and this criterion is key) — became immune to learned helplessness. Therefore, even when these beings are subjected to a traumatic situation later on, in which the outcome is actually uncontrollable, they remain unconvinced that they are now powerless. “This,” says Seligman, “is the heart of the concept of immunization.”7

Of course, the opposite is also true: A past history of experiences in which there was no escape will make it difficult for the human or animal to believe that an outcome is controllable, even when it actually is.

These discoveries have profound implications for child rearing. Infants, children, and adolescents who are subjected to uncontrollable trauma or adverse events have a poor self-image. They become hopeless, unmotivated, depressed or anxious, and they fail to learn. These children become the very adults who, when subjected to the evidence that refutes the official 9/11 storyline, might run in the other direction to avoid the messenger — or, if cornered or pressed, quietly admit, “There is nothing I can do to make a difference” (or a variation thereof).

In my psychotherapeutic work, I discovered that some of my clients had experienced severe traumas during their birth process, their preverbal years, or their childhoods. These early, overwhelming traumas caused these individuals to automatically respond with a feeling of powerlessness whenever they were faced with a challenging situation. One example that comes to mind is the person who, as an infant, was reared in dire poverty. Her overworked, exhausted mother was largely unavailable, both physically and emotionally during her infancy and childhood. None of her attempts to get her mother to care for her succeeded, making this an uncontrollable situation. Another example I recall is the toddler who was left alone in a hospital for weeks on end without his mother or father present to comfort him. Both individuals, not surprisingly, suffered from subsequent depression and low self-esteem.

Another illustration of learned helplessness comes from the work of psychiatrist Stanislav Grof, who has documented many examples of birth trauma. If, for example, the second stage of birth is prolonged, with intense uterine contractions and a cervix not fully opened, the child is subjected to an uncontrollable, inescapable, and seemingly interminable battering from the contractions. No effort on her part can change this “no exit” situation. Babies who have undergone this birth trauma, Grof discovered, can develop “inhibited depression” later in life, even if other events in their subsequent development were benign. Inhibited depression is characterized by feelings of inferiority, inadequacy, helplessness, hopelessness, and existential despair. In other words, the uncontrollable aspect of trauma at this stage of birth can result in learned helplessness.8

Learned-helplessness conditioning can be established in adulthood as well. Victims of torture and troops who served in a war are liable to suffer from a condition that has been labeled Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). As with the childhood and animal-research cases, if these adults exhibit signs of learned helplessness, it is an indication that they were probably subjected to a prolonged traumatic event that was uncontrollable.

If those who unconsciously harbor uncontrollable traumatic histories hear that they have been brutally lied to and that their fellow Americans have been mass murdered by their own government, the old, unconscious emotional reactions of being overwhelmed and helpless in infancy and childhood are likely reactivated, causing great distress and fear. These emotions are immediately followed by defensive responses such as avoidance, resignation, and/or apathy. Though the source of learned helplessness in humans often lies deep within the unconscious psyche, the condition can be healed through extensive psychotherapeutic work. Before healing is accomplished, however, any attempt to logically explain the 9/11 Truth evidence to such a traumatized person will probably fall on infertile ground.

Clearly, 9/11 is not the only tragic event in recent history that elicits a reaction of learned helplessness. The toxic cocktail of corruption, violence, and dysfunction so prevalent in today’s world can easily activate old traumas, reigniting feelings of being overwhelmed and hopeless. But then again, anyone with a modicum of awareness and sensitivity to the plight of other beings and the earth itself is rightly disturbed by the realities of today’s world.9

As activists, we need to heal our own anxiety and overarching sense of urgency to help us cultivate the understanding and compassion that allows us to empathize with people burdened by such internal handicaps as learned helplessness. These individuals are probably coping as best they can. Unless their wounds are healed, all the mountains of evidence we share with them about 9/11 Truth will likely make them feel disempowered and will thus be summarily rejected.

While the phenomenon of learned helplessness is backed by copious research, a concept called “the abuse syndrome” has not yet received this backing. Nonetheless, the abuse syndrome deserves to be considered as a possible explanation for reactions of helplessness, hopelessness, and apathy. We will explore it in the next segment of this series.



Editor's note: To be continued in the next issue with Part 15: The Abuse Syndrome. Electronic sources in the footnotes have been archived. If they can no longer be found by a search on the Internet, readers desiring a copy may contact Frances Shure for a copy [ here ].

Continued with Part 15: The Abuse Syndrome


1 Sauron is the main antagonist in J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings. The cursed ring, which was to be destroyed by the relatively pure hero Frodo Baggins, seduced even the most pure of beings who possessed it into an insatiable lust for power. My acquaintance was implicating that if we were going to challenge such evil as was perpetrated on 9/11, then we had better have a ring of evil power in our possession.

2 After a conversation with one of my editors, I agreed with her that we should help raise consciousness about the plight of animals in our world. We have been trained in our culture to think of non-human beings as objects, even commodities — and as much less important than humans. The everyday language we use is one way to increase our awareness that animals feel, both physically and emotionally. They respond to pain, imprisonment, or betrayal with fear and anguish and confusion. They also respond to being treated with compassion, respect, and love. Thus, in this essay, I will use the pronoun “who” rather than “that” in referring to these innocents. To those who want to witness the profound sensitivity and intelligence of animals, I highly recommend one of the most beautiful films I have seen: The Animal Communicator,which may be watched or purchased online.

3 Martin E. P. Seligman, Helplessness: On Depression, Development, and Death (W.H. Freeman & Co., May 1992), 22 – 23.

4 Seligman, Helplessness.

5 Ibid. xx – xxiv.

6 Seligman, Helplessness

7 Ibid.60.

8 Stanislav Grof, Beyond the Brain: Birth, Death and Transcendence in Psychotherapy (State University of New York, 1985).

Stanislav Grof, The Adventure of Self-Discovery: Dimensions of Consciousness and New Perspectives in Psychotherapy and Inner Exploration (State University of New York Press, 1988).

Stanislav Grof is a world-renowned pioneer of psychodynamic and transpersonal psychology.

9 Dennis, Sheila, and Mathew Linn, Healing the Future. The Linns tell their personal stories of healing from societal trauma, activated by earlier developmental trauma, offering examples of simple healing exercises.

Post by Frances T. Shure, M.A., L.P.C.

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(FULL) Elizabeth's Story, A Meredith Vieira Special

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Nabeel Qureshi, in Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus

“Then I saw something that I had seen countless times before: a man walking down the sidewalk toward the medical school.
But that was not all I saw. Though I had no idea who this man was, I knew he had a dramatic story, replete with personal struggles, broken relationships, & splintered self-worth. Taught by the world that he was an outcome of blind evolution, he subconsciously valued himself as exactly that: a byproduct of random chance, with no purpose, no hope, no meaning except what pleasures he could extract out of the day. Chasing these pleasures resulted in guilt & pain, which caused him to chase more pleasures, which led to more guilt & more pain. Burying it all just beneath the surface, he went about his day with no clue how to break the cycle, how to find true hope.
What I saw was a man who needed to know that God could rescue him, that God had rescued him. This man needed to know about God & His power.
Did he know?
Did he know that God loved him from the foundations of the earth? With a power far exceeding the immensity of the cosmos, He turned all His attention to creating that man & declared, ‘You are My child. I love you.’
Did he know that God made him exactly how He wanted, knowing each hair on his head & each second of his life? God knew full well that the hands He gave to this man would be used to sin against Him, that the feet He gave to this man would be used to walk away from Him. Yet, instead of withholding these gifts, He gave him the most precious gift of all: His own Son.
Did he know that God entered into this world for him, to suffer in his stead? Received with slaps & fists by the very people He came to save, He was scourged until His skin fell off in ribbons, only to be pierced through both arms & feet, nailed naked on wood for all to ridicule. He scraped His skinless back on splintered wood with each rasping breath, His last breath finishing the task of rescuing us, of securing our eternity with Him.
Did he know?
Of course not. We have to tell him.
While I was wallowing in self-pity, focused on myself, there was a whole world with literally billions of people who had no idea who God is, how amazing He is, & the wonders He has done for us. They are the ones who are really suffering. They don’t know His hope, His peace, & His love that transcends all understanding. They don’t know the Message of the Gospel.
After loving us with the most humble life & the most horrific death, Jesus told us, ‘As I have loved you, go & love one another.’ How could I consider myself a follower of Jesus if I was not willing to live as He lived? To die as He died? To love the unloved & give hope to the hopeless?
This is not about me. It is about Him & His love for His children.
Now I knew what it meant to follow God. It meant walking boldly by His Spirit of grace & love, in the firm confidence of everlasting life given through the Son, with the eternal purpose of proclaiming & glorifying the Father.”
-- Nabeel Qureshi, in Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus

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Dificuldades que Fortalecem

http://anchor.tfionline.com/pt/post/dificuldades-que-fortalecem/

Maria Fontaine

O Senhor sabe que encorajamento é muito importante para nós, e Ele quer nos dar em abundância. Encorajamento desempenha um papel fundamental para nos ajudar a continuar seguindo em frente, mesmo quando temos vontade de desistir. Encorajamento é uma das melhores injeções de ânimo — e quando vem do Senhor, eu diria que é a melhor. O encorajamento de Deus nos ajuda a saber que não estamos sós, que Ele entende o que estamos enfrentando, e que, se apenas aguentarmos um pouco mais, conseguiremos.

A Palavra de Deus aborda uma série de assuntos, mas às vezes você simplesmente precisa ler algo que é puro encorajamento, que lhe dá um estímulo extra quando está se sentindo por baixo. A beleza da Palavra de Deus é que, quer se encaixe na sua situação “como uma luva”, quer os princípios se apliquem, quer possa ajustar o conceito à sua situação, ou o Senhor a use para falar com você sobre algo completamente diferente, quer lhe dê mais compaixão dos outros ou o ajude a compreendê-los — vai beneficiar você. Sempre ganhamos algo inestimável ao lermos a Palavra de Deus, se orarmos como o Rei Davi, “Desvenda os meus olhos, para que veja as maravilhas da Tua lei.”[1]

Oro que a seguinte mensagem de encorajamento dada em profecia, sejam palavras dadas no momento certo para você, como “maçãs de ouro em cestos de prata.”[2]

Jesus disse:

Pode ler as histórias de qualquer um dos Meus grandiosos homens e mulheres do passado, qualquer um que considere um cristão de destaque que fez um trabalho maravilhoso por Mim, e verá que nenhum deles teve uma vida fácil. Cada um deles lutou contra o Inimigo e contra as dificuldades que um mundo descrente jogou contra eles durante toda a sua vida. Às vezes lhes pareceu que Eu nem sempre respondi às suas orações, ou que permiti coisas que eles consideravam difíceis demais e que não conseguiriam suportar. Mas foram esses tempos difíceis e obstáculos que os fizeram brilhar com tanto fulgor por Mim, e que fizeram deles eternos exemplos de dedicação e amor por Mim desde aqueles dias até agora, e por toda a eternidade.

“No mundo tereis aflições, mas tende bom ânimo, eu venci o mundo.”[3] Esta vida na Terra inclui tempos de sofrimento e dor, dificuldade e perda, luta e muito esforço. Se toda a fricção fosse removida e você pudesse planar pela vida sem esforço algum não seria a terra. Isso seria o Céu. OCéu é o Meu reino, onde há perfeição e nenhuma decepção. Mas a terra é um campo de batalha. É um lugar onde você passa por dificuldades e quebrantamentos, dor e lágrimas.

Você está fazendo a Minha luz brilhar neste mundo, apesar de todas as dificuldades que enfrenta, e por isto o exaltarei grandemente um dia. Mas não se surpreenda por a vida ser difícil. Todo o mundo que já fez qualquer coisa de valor por Mim se deparou com essas dificuldades. Enquanto estiver tentando viver por Mim neste mundo, sempre vai parecer difícil.

No Céu farei tudo perfeito. Mas não na terra. Não ainda. Não é o momento. Responder cada uma de suas orações, solucionar todas as situações e remover cada espinho, iria derrotar o propósito para o qual está na terra.

Um segredo para enfrentar tempos de provações é lembrar que nunca lhe prometi um mar de rosas, mas prometo ajudá-lo a passar pela tempestade. Deixe as provações atuais impeli-lo pela tempestade e ajudá-lo a ser um apoio e bênção para outros, pois já esteve em seu lugar e sabe como é.

A dificuldade o fortalece. O que você considera dificuldade eu considero a sua glória. Quero aproximá-lo de Mim e confortá-lo. Quero encorajá-o e lhe dizer que estou muito orgulhoso de você por guardar a fé e permanecer fiel a Mim. Há muita dor na terra, mas grandes recompensas no céu. Há muito sacrifício na terra, mas grande glória no céu. Às vezes já confusão e dúvidas, mas um dia você Me verá face a face e conhecerá tudo plenamente, assim como é conhecido.[4]

Tenha coragem, e saiba que estou sempre aqui para você. Prometo que nunca permitirei que sucumba debaixo do fardo. Minha graça lhe bastará. Eu o farei sair vitorioso das tempestades e tribulações desta vida. Tenha bom ânimo, Eu venci o mundo!

Você sempre terá batalhas e problemas nesta vida, mas a vitória vem de simplesmente Me buscar. Confie em Mim e acredite, independente das circunstâncias nas quais se encontra, mesmo quando não entende. Lembre-se, se tu podes crer, tudo é possível ao que crê.[5]

Moisés não entendeu como Eu o ajudaria a atravessar o Mar Vermelho. Gideão não tinha a mínima idéia de como Eu o ajudaria a ganhar a batalha com apenas 300 homens. O conhecimento de Noé sobre embarcações era nulo; ele nem mesmo sabia o que era um barco, e levou 120 anos para descobrir. Ele não conseguia ver o quadro final quando começou a anotar as dimensões daquele navio. Não tinha a mínima ideia do que seria o resultado final. Ele simplesmente Me seguiu um dia de cada vez, um passo de cada vez. E recusou se render ou ceder perante as multidões que o escarneciam. Ele fixou os olhos em Mim e não os desviou. Foi assim que passou aqueles 120 longos anos — levando as coisas um dia de cada vez, apenas por fé.

Então aproveite ao máximo a sua vida na terra. Aprenda a considerar tudo uma alegria e uma honra quando passar por batalhas e provações.[6] Você pode superar. Você consegue. Chegou até aqui por fé, não desista. Continue em frente por Mim. Continue combatendo o bom combate da fé. Sei que você consegue.

*

Que Deus maravilhoso nós temos—Ele é o Pai do nosso Senhor Jesus Cristo, a fonte de toda a misericórdia, e aquele que tão maravilhosamente nos conforta e fortalece nas dificuldades e provações! E por que Ele faz isso? Para que, quando os outros estiverem aflitos, necessitados da nossa compaixão e do nosso estimulo, possamos transmitir-lhes essa mesma ajuda e esse mesmo consolo que Deus nos deu. Podem estar seguros de que, quanto mais suportarmos sofrimento por causa de Cristo, mais Ele derramara sobre nós o seu consolo e o seu incentivo.

Nós estamos em sérios apertos por levar a vocês o consolo e a salvação de Deus. Mas em nossa dificuldade Deus nos tem confortado—e isto, também, para ajudar vocês; para mostrar-lhes com a nossa experiência pessoal como Deus nos confortará ternamente quando suportarem estes mesmos sofrimentos. Ele lhes dará forças para aguentar.—2 Coríntios 1:3–7[7]

Publicado originalmente em março de 2007. Adaptado e republicado em junho de 2014. Tradução Denise Oliveira. Revisão H.R.Flandoli.


[1] Salmo 119:18, BV.

[2] Provérbios 25:11, SBB.

[3] João 16:33.

[4] 1 Coríntios 13:12.

[5] Marcos 9:23.

[6] Tiago 1:2.

[7] NTLH.

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What made Stonewall Jackson such a legend?

http://www.csmonitor.com/Books/chapter-and-verse/2015/0220/What-made-Stonewall-Jackson-such-a-legend

S.C. Gwynne's book 'Rebel Yell' details the life of the South's most beloved martyr, the Confederate general who left a brutal battlefield legacy that's still with us today.
By Randy Dotinga FEBRUARY 20, 2015


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By the numbers, the North should have easily smashed the South in the American Civil War. The North had more soldiers, more money, more supplies. But the numbers knew nothing about a man named Thomas Jackson, best known to us today as “Stonewall.”

An exceedingly ordinary physics professor who became an exceedingly extraordinary general, Jackson inspired the South and became its most beloved martyr.

Historian S.C. Gwynne, best known as the author of books about the American West, profiles Jackson in a new biography. Rebel Yell: The Violence, Passion, and Redemption of Stonewall Jackson is a remarkable book that deserves a place on any list of this century’s best Civil War histories.
Recommended: 10 best novels about the US Civil War

Gwynne vividly brings this most unusual man to life. He reveals how Jackson, an odd, gentle, and even meek man off the battlefield, revolutionized warfare by abandoning any pretense that war isn’t cruel or bloody. Like virtually no one else, it seems, he saw what was coming and was ready.

Jackson made his men fight, and he made his men die, and he left a brutal battlefield legacy that’s still with us today. “He understood the South had few resources, and the idea was to hit the North so hard and make it feel pain so acutely that they’d acknowledge Southern independence,” Gwynne said an interview with the Monitor. “It’s the same theory as dropping a bomb on Hiroshima.” And it had similar horrific results.

Q: Why did you choose to write a biography of someone from the South, which will forever be on the wrong side of history?

I’m as Yankee of a guy as you can possibly get, but when you study the Civil War, you discover that it was a very complex economic and social phenomenon. It’s possible to look at and understand the Confederacy without focusing on the single issue that slavery was a moral wrong. It’s a lot more complicated than that.

Q: What drew you to Stonewall Jackson?

I’ve been interested in the Civil War for the long time, and this seemed to be as dramatic a story as I could find. And he wasn’t one of the Confederacy’s great villains, obviously.

Q: In fact, he was on the progressive side, at least from a Southern perspective. What did he believe about racial issues?

Jackson came from what is now West Virginia, a part of the country where slavery was not really very common. He had slaves when he grew up, his uncles had slaves and he had slaves of his own, but he acquired three to help them avoid worse fates.

As a physics professor, he founded and ran a successful Sunday school for slaves. This was what he did in his spare time. He taught slaves to read, and he was accosted in the street by people who said, “You can’t do this.”

There’s even a church near Roanoke with a stained-glass window portrait of Jackson put up by one of his students in the Sunday school.

Q: The Civil War is remarkable because so many high-profile men were wretched generals. At the same time, men who failed or nearly failed in life before the war, like Jackson and Ulysses Grant, became unlikely heroes. What do you make of that?

The Civil War was a great transformer of men, and it cut both ways.

The political generals, these great wealthy men who were powerful before the war, are exposed as incompetent and cowards. On the other side, you have Grant, who’s failed at everything he’s ever done, and William Tecumseh Sherman, who failed at all of his business ventures, and Philip Sheridan, who was nothing.

Then there’s Jackson, who’s this peculiar, kind-of-failed physics professor and becomes the most famous military man in the Western world. His ascent was astonishing, 14 months from being a physics professor – whom the Army didn’t really want – to being compared to Napoleon.

Q: How did this fussy, odd man – a guy who was mocked by his physics students – transform so quickly?

Jackson was a hero in the Mexican War, but afterward he was kind of miserable. There’s no war, nothing to be great at, and his students threw spitballs and imitated him. Then the Civil War comes and he’s instantly great.

One of the reasons that men like Grant and Jackson moved up so quickly is because a lot of people fighting weren’t very good.

A lot of other generals wanted power, but they were scared of the responsibility. In the early war, there’s so much incompetence that it’s like the Keystone Cops. By year three of the war, most of the real incompetence had been weeded out.

Q: What were some of his best traits?

He had his eccentricities. He wouldn’t share information with anyone, which is not what you’d consider good management, and he didn’t get along with many of his generals. At one point, all of his principal generals were under arrest.

But he was good at deception, he was decisive, and he had an astounding ability to understand the terrain and maneuver his army to the right place at the right time.

A lot of his greatness was in his moral courage: You have an army, and you’ve got to make decisions, and a lot of men will be killed. The decision-making was crisp and thorough, and there was going to be no second-guessing. In the early war, there was hardly anyone who was as decisive as Jackson.

He also believed that he could get more out of his men than anyone thought possible. He was ahead of everyone else in understanding how cruel the war would be. He had an whole army in mutiny against him, but it worked.

Q: What did he understand about the war early on that others failed to perceive?

He understood very early that the war was going to be a lot harder and crueler than anyone thought it would be. He wanted to take an army north and burn Baltimore and Philadelphia and Pittsburgh and march to the Great Lakes. He supported a “black flag” war, which means no prisoners, you should kill everybody.

He understood the South had few resources, and the idea was to hit the North so hard and make it feel pain so acutely that they’d acknowledge Southern independence. It’s the same theory as dropping a bomb on Hiroshima.

His war department thought he was flat crazy and dangerous for advocating this. But look what happens to General Robert E. Lee a few years later: He marches into Pennsylvania.

Q: What was Jackson’s legacy in the long term?

Jackson had a profound effect on war in the 20th century, the ultra-fast movements and quick strikes. The German blitzkrieg is partially based on Jackson and his style of fighting.

Q: What was his legacy in the war itself after he was killed on the battlefield?

He was brave, and he was feared on the battlefield. He was seen as this underdog who could take small armies against bigger armies. It absolutely shattered the South when he died, and his death was as shattering as Lincoln’s was to the North two years later.

When Jackson died, it was the first outpouring of grief for a fallen hero in American history. The leaders who had fallen before tended to be old men.

His death touched every heart and hearth in the South and took away one of their great heroes. When he received that wound, Jackson and Lee had just engineered the South’s greatest victory. The immediate legacy was a shattering of Southern spirit.

Randy Dotinga, a Monitor contributor, is president of the American Society of Journalists and Authors.

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