Test of goodness

"Stress is the test for character and goodness. Being positively principled and values-driven is easy when the choices are easy and the pressures are small. Our tests in life come with difficult choices and when the pressures on us are very great."

-- M. Scott Peck, in People of the Lie

"When we long for life without difficulties, remind us that oaks grow strong in contrary winds, and diamonds are formed under intense pressure."

-- Peter Marshall

"Definition of courage: grace under pressure."

-- Ernest Hemingway

"William, you have work to do"

-- John Newton to William Wilberforce
in the movie, "Amazing Grace"

My oldest son, Jim, told me 5 years ago, after a full year of financial crisis for me, when he was just graduating from college and he received a letter from me crying the blues about how I couldn't afford to get him a big graduation gift that I would have like to, and he said, "Dad, I never measured you as a man by what you provided me and Mark. I watched the choices you made under pressure." I am so aware of this now, after so many years of caving and cracking under the pressures of life, and I so appreciate the stunning wisdom of my son, and even though we now live many miles apart, I live each day as if he can see my every move, and we can measure them together, and I am not afraid. It's one thing in life to be who you say you are when things are going well and the test are few and far between, and it's quite another when the world wakes up every morning and seems to be repeatedly sticking its finger in your eye and stirring vigorously. And choosing a life of God, love, service, and simplicity almost seems to invite such stirring, because the world is not really set up to support those as the "right way" (at least other than in lip service), but what a scenario to teach you character, determination, discipline, grace under pressure.

While God is showering us with grace in every moment; the world seems to be trying to keep it blocked, bottled up, or invisible with all of its distractions, plots, shenanigans, and sometimes even "seemingly good ideas." And we are invited to fully receive and then to extravagantly let it flow, all while being carefully instructed on how to keep the channels open and totally clear -even, make that especially, in the great or frequent storms of life. The movie the other night, "Amazing Grace" (see trailer at: http://movies.yahoo.com/mv/mf/frame?theme=minfo&lid=wmv-300-p.1543565-181142,wmv-700-p.1543566-181142,wmv-1000-p.1543567-181142,wmv-100-p.1543564-181142&id=1809422949&f=1809422949&mspid=1809804222&type=t), as well as the movie I saw before it, "Children of Men," as well as the book I read in between, Left to Tell (by Immaculee Ilibagiza), all reinforced for me once again that the "right things" in life and this world are seldom the "easy things" and very rarely, if ever, the "popular things," and yet you will always be glad, no matter what the outcome, that you stood for them.