Three Most Important Things Above All

Let us resolve to formularise life. If there is a secret to the mastery of this existence, it could come down to three things: effective relationships with others, ourselves, and of course, God—the Spirit for life. There is one thing for each of these relationships that will help more than anything else.

1. Resolve to Give

Nothing assists our relationships more than when we resolve to give; be it our time, our resources, or anything else we have to give.

This is a most difficult thing to achieve with lasting effect. The world has its way of creating within us the ‘need’ to cling to things; want of these for ourselves.

God gives us the construct for giving through the commands to love; to treat others as we’d like to be treated. The desire to give is matched with the experience of God’s blessing, personally.

2. Exercise Self-Control

Life is a long journey. It is a war of attrition. The fact is nothing can give an individual more self-satisfaction than achieving mastery over their self through discipline. Conversely, if a trip to hell is on the cards it’s through a dire lack of disciplined constitution; a direct route is poor self-control.

The premise with self-control is sacrifice; resisting the desirous urges of the weakish soul as it interacts with a divisive world. The desires of the flesh manifest themselves over the bases of self-control and bad habits indwelt in weakness are evident in a flash. These can be incredibly difficult to shake once they’ve taken hold.

Against these bad habits of weakness is the power of the Holy Spirit to redress situations, enjoyed one day at a time.

3. Achieving Situational / Spiritual Resilience

As we’ve noted above, life is a war of attrition. Those who are able to respond to the spurs of life—the impostors: triumph and disaster—in the most consistent of fashions will be richly rewarded for their consistency.

The devil loves to get into our heads and hearts to wreak havoc. The truth is we let it occur all too easily and regularly without a fight because of a lack of awareness or a lack of courage to deal with it, or both.

God’s Presence is there, however, to give us the power to overcome; to maintain composure, even when under fire.

The Common Denominator

Consistency is the word; always has been, always will be. It links the above three ideas—the enhancement of our relationships with others, self and God—in a harmony that is to be admired. It battles the triple-nemesis: the world—the flesh—the Satanic.

Life wears down our resilience, generally. Our mission is to continue to come back to the truth that God is for us, never against us. This Divine power that resides within is helping supernaturally in each of the abovementioned areas.

© 2010 S. J. Wickham.