I thought about what I shared with my readers in the last issue of this article, namely that embracing the WAY of Jesus could be freighting to some. The more I thought about this the more I came to realize that it is only freighting because it challenges us to accept life as it is presented to us and not as we fantasize and wish it to be. For some reason we humans tend to believe that life should turn out the way we want and feel put-upon when it doesn’t. Of course this springs from our belief that somehow our life is ours and that we should have control over it. We seem to do everything in our power to control life and try to make it turn out the way that we want it to be. Then comes the very rude awakening that life doesn’t turn out the way that we want and that we’re only in control of life on a very superficial level.

The WAY of Jesus calls us to accept the life that is given to us, believing that it is uniquely designed to help us grow and change – to help us transform ourselves into beings who are more and more in the likeness of God. The WAY of Jesus helps us to redefine the struggles and challenges of life, turning them into the opportunities for personal growth.

Of course the first hurdle that we all must overcome is the belief that we don’t need to change or transform our lives. To embrace such a belief takes a considerable amount of self-reflection and definitely personal knowledge about ourselves.

As I shared in another article in the Bulletin, the problem usually is that many, if not all of us, have developed, because of life experiences, false ideas about ourselves. It seems that the natural tendency humans have is either to have a puffed-up idea or a very diminished idea of themselves. Having a true and realistic idea of who we are is critical. The WAY of Jesus calls us to a genuine idea of who we are, knowing that life has given us both strengths and weaknesses in the right balance to help us grow and become all that God intended when He called us into existence.

One of the key aspects of the WAY of Jesus is to think about the life that we have been given as God’s gift. We only deserve the life we have because our God-Creator has loved us for all eternity. Think about it! The God our religion presents doesn’t just make up things as time spins on. He does not change and think about new things as history unfolds. Rather, all things are a part of His consciousness (to use a human idea) from all eternity. The idea of who each of us is has always existed in God.