11.25- There is a character quality that I admire in my kids and grandkids.

 11.25-

There is a character quality that I admire in my kids and grandkids. To be able to take a punch that hurts and knocks them down, but they get back and go at it again and again. Resilience.

Life includes painful learning moments. These can help us to have tested character. More valuable than gold.

One of my best friends took the challenge of helping me to overcome a problem of talking to several people in a quick, shallow way rather than a few people in a deep and meaningful way. He watched me gadabout in a group and took me aside.

He said, "Larry your need to slow down and really engage with people. When I see you in a crowd I think you come across like a politician running for office."

To give that correction to me took deep love on his part. We are still close friends after 50 years. He called me yesterday for some good visiting by phone. He he been afraid to invest or if had walked away from our friendship it would have been a great loss.

Hebrews 12

12 Therefore, since we also have such a great cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let’s rid ourselves of every obstacle and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let’s run with endurance the race that is set before us, 2 looking only at Jesus, the [a]originator and perfecter of the faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

3 For consider Him who has endured such hostility by sinners against Himself, so that you will not grow weary [b]and lose heart.

A Father’s Discipline

4 You have not yet resisted [c]to the point of shedding blood in your striving against sin; 5 and you have forgotten the exhortation which is addressed to you as sons,

“My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord,
Nor faint when you are punished by Him;
6 For whom the Lord loves He disciplines,
And He punishes every son whom He accepts.”

7 It is for discipline that you endure; God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom his father does not discipline? 8 But if you are without discipline, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. 9 Furthermore, we had [d]earthly fathers to discipline us, and we respected them; shall we not much more be subject to the Father of [e]spirits, and live? 10 For they disciplined us for a short time as seemed best to them, but He disciplines us for our good, so that we may share His holiness. 11 For the moment, all discipline seems not to be pleasant, but painful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterward it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness.

All reactions: