You never fully recognize where you are, until you are somewhere else, and it is then you will be able to fully recognize where you were, because you see exactly where you came from.  Like the awestruck feeling that is felt every time I look out of the window of an airplane; it is then I can feel that the world is so much larger than I assumed.  The perspective in which all of your thoughts are based off of, continually changes as life educates you, and maturity and relationship experience gives you wisdom.  The moment I visited another country was the first moment I was really proud, thankful, and blessed that I was simply just an American citizen, because I saw what it meant to live somewhere else, in another nation.

Life is the best teacher.  It even applies to the words we respect or give attention to.  Who listens to a person who speaks on marriages and rearing children, that is divorced and has children in and out of jail?  How a person lives is a major determinant on how they will be respected.  So, life teaches more so than words.  People respect rap artists because they live in palaces, have money, are around beautiful people, and wear expensive jewelry more than they respect the words of their parents, who’ve loved them their whole life; and these children are learning by watching the lives of other people who they’ve never met.  How a person lives is a greater influence than most of the things they say.  Even if what they say is true and beneficial.

There was a time when a used to spend a large quantity of time at my uncle’s house.  Usually after we were together for a while, and after he had  a few drinks, he would always start off a conversation by saying, “Jake.  Let me tell you something about life…”.  He’s now passed on, and I used to joke about the conversations with my cousin, because it was funny, and at the time he was intoxicated and the conversations were basically meaningless.  But now, at this present time, I can see that he was really trying to give me a course on the  lessons on life, the best way he could.  [Off the subject:  Don’t allow someone’s death to have more meaning than their life.]

I read the Bible all the time.  The same scriptures over and over, every year.  Some may not understand why people read it over and over.  But I promise you, basically everytime I read portions of the gospels, I receive a new revelation from it; yet, it is the same scripture I read and studied as a teenager.  Why is that?  I know one reason is simply because I am more mature (or I have more life experience).  Now, as an adult, I receive a better understanding of more Biblical passages, than I could when I was younger.  Just as maturity has ceased my enjoyment of various songs that I grew up singing, now that I recognize the meaning of the words used, and I see how those vulgar and sexually implicit words influenced my thoughts and feelings.

I feel God uses life, our experiences, relationships, and especially our struggles, as a way to teach us wisdom.  I see so many young people whose priorities are leading them into lives of distress and unfulfillment.  Though I do not feel I know everything, something I do know is that everyone wants a better life.  Nevertheless, life also teaches that people will always do stupid stuff.  Everyone has to make their own decisions and live their own life, and sometimes it can take 40 years in the desert to reach your Promised Land.  I know it’s hard to know what to do what is right all the time, or whose words to trust, or which decision to make.  Personally, I know all I can do is use wisdom I’ve learned from life, work hard to be prepared and do my best, that’s what I can control; everything else I leave it in God’s hands.

I started off this year with so much positivity.  Looking back, I feel I was focused, prepared, and patiently waiting for all of the blessings and any hardships the new year would bring.  I am past the halfway point of this year.  This summer hasn’t been the best for me, and fatigue was settling in my spirit as of late, and today I feel like I got a second wind to finish the race strong to the end of the year  🙂  .