SPRING FORTH NOW

Test yourselves to make sure you are solid in the faith. Don’t drift along taking everything for granted. Give yourselves regular checkups. You need firsthand evidence, not mere hearsay, that Jesus Christ is in you. Test it out. If you fail the test, do something about it. I hope the test won’t show that we have failed. But if it comes to that, we’d rather the test showed our failure than yours. We’re rooting for the truth to win out in you. We couldn’t possibly do otherwise. We don’t just put up with our limitations; we celebrate them, and then go on to celebrate every strength, every triumph of the truth in you. We pray hard that it will all come together in your lives. And that's about it, friends. Be cheerful. Keep things in good repair. Keep your spirits up. Think in harmony. Be agreeable. Do all that, and the God of love and peace will be with you for sure.

II Corinthians 13:5-9; 11 (MSG)

Life’s challenges seek to separate us from the promise of life and life more abundantly and as a result, often knock us out of alignment with God’s original purpose and plan for our lives. It is the challenges we face that often will make us do adjustments in our lives to protect us and or massage our fears, unintentionally justifying our status quo. Remember, we have not been given the spirit of fear but of power, love, and a sound mind. Therefore, we must approach life as well as its challenges from a perspective that life and its challenges do not have power over us nor can they drive the narrative of our life. We have been given victory not because of how good or perfect we are but instead by Jesus as a reward for our diligently seeking to live in God’s original purpose and plan for our life and life more abundantly. Thus, all along life’s way, we must examine ourselves, our life, and our journey so as to determine if the conscious and nonconscious adjustments that are made knock us out of alignment with God's plan and if so, Readjust so to maintain proper alignment. The regular checkups with ourselves and our journey must be undergirded with our honest and candid confession about the reality of our feelings and the facts of our reality, the truth, that helps us to develop and execute a plan to address our issues, Readjust and empower us to Breathe: New Life!