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A story by a man about a woman


a man once was given the task of guarding over a young woman. - the young woman, unfortunately, was turned into a grotesque demon every full moon, so that she was unrecognizable. on one such night the man was standing guard outside of her house, not knowing that she had snuck out the back. he was beginning to dose off while standing up when he heard a commotion in the front courtyard. he grabbed his bow and quiver and ran out to find a monstrous demon trudging towards him, malice gleaming in its eyes. in that moment, fear gripping him, the man forgot that the woman transformed on nights such as these when the full moon was out, and he fired three arrows in rapid succession at the beast, which groaned and fell to the ground. Upon falling the girl transformed into herself again.
At that moment, the girl's father - the king - ran out and yelled at the sight of the young woman lying in the courtyard, wounded and covered in blood. "you clumsy oaf!" he shouted at the man. "couldn't you see it was her? you knew she transformed on nights where the full moon shined! as for me, i will never let you stand guard at my palace again!"
the man with the bow looked up with tears in his eyes. "your majesty, all i wanted was to protect your daughter the princess," he replied. "in the moment of peril i was not thinking clearly. please do not judge my ability as a guardsman based on my erroneous decision in the moment of crisis."

~Anonymous

The Kierkegaarden Alternatives

"The truth is a snare: you cannot have it, without being caught. You cannot have the truth in such a way that you catch it, but only in such a way that it catches you."

"The paradox is really the pathos of intellectual life and just as only great souls are exposed to passions it is only the great thinker who is exposed to what I call paradoxes, which are nothing else than grandiose thoughts in embryo."

"Destroy your primitivity, and you will most probably get along well in the world, maybe achieve great success -- but Eternity will reject you. Follow up your primitivity, and you will be shipwrecked in temporality, but accepted by Eternity."

"The more a man can forget, the greater the number of metamorphoses which his life can undergo, the more he can remember the more divine his life becomes."

~Soren Kierkegaard

"You need to become absolutely determined to follow Jesus. It is not true that you are too weak to overcome sin – that is a lie of the devil. In Jesus it is possible to overcome sin. That is why he died on the cross. Live totally for him."

~J.H Arnold

My general experience and a plausable solution

It should be unbearable to those of us who believe if we are worthless for the task for which we have been put on earth. We have been placed in the midst of creation, but sadly we have lost the feeling that we are here for a purpose, not for ourselves, but for something far greater – to be servants of the living one. This is what makes us feel so sad, so defeated. People mostly sit in church thinking only about themselves. Each one bemoans his own lot and looks for something in himself and for himself, without really knowing what God’s purpose for the earth is. One would like to cry out to them all, “Good people, forget yourselves! Think of God’s cause! Start working for that! Or at least be sorry, not that things are going badly for you, but that you have nothing better to do than concern yourselves with your own petty affairs.”

~Blumhardt

The blessing of God invoked

Then those who feared the LORD(A) spoke with one another. The LORD paid attention and heard them, and(B) a book of remembrance was written before him of those who feared the LORD and esteemed his name. "They shall be mine, says the LORD of hosts, in the day when I make up(D) my treasured possession, and I will spare them as a man spares his son who serves him. Then once more you shall(E) see the distinction between the righteous and the wicked, between one who serves God and one who does not serve him.

Hope of the Lord

It is good to wait quietly (A)

for deliverance from the LORD. (B)

It is good for a man to bear the yoke (C)
while he is [still] young.

Let him sit alone and be silent, (D)
for God has disciplined him.

Let him put his mouth in the dust (E) —
perhaps there is [still] hope.

Let him offer [his] cheek
to the one who would strike him; (F)
let him be filled with shame.

"I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings by becoming like him in his death, if somehow I may attain the resurrection from the dead. Not that I have already obtained this or have already reached the goal; but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Beloved, I do not consider that I have made it my own; but this one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus. Let those of us then who are mature be of the same mind; and if you think differently about anything, this too God will reveal to you. Only let us hold fast to what we have attained."

This is the adventure of faith that Paul defines as his desired pursuit. Knowing Christ and desiring to to partake in His life giving power knowing that the suffering inflicted from this deadened world for the name of Jesus to those who have received life is just a passing affliction. When we seek to be apart of Jesus, everything is transformed and the world's passions grow dim in the light of the great Creator-God.

"Brothers and sisters, join in imitating me, and observe those who live according to the example you have in us.

This is the admonition of the Apostle to the Saints in Corinth--to seek out the life and to bear the suffering of Jesus in order to experience the power of God. He would have all of the Saints of God cultivate this lifestyle of the imitation of Christ. In doing this we fulfill the great commandment of love given by the Lord Christ. May we always, through difficulties, seek to have an uninhibited fellowship with Christ-God who has in every way become our Prophet, Priest, and King. For Jesus is the source of life, wisdom from God, righteousness, holiness and redemption--Christ is our boast of true, everlasting life.