A humbling experience.  Normally considered to be a negative encounter in our lives rather than an enriching one.

Why?

Because it has been the banner carried by our society over the past fifty years, touting that the more autonomous, self-reliant, confident and determined we are to maintain our opinions and identity, the better off we are.

We fail to understand that success is the inheritance given to the humble as they acquire the Earth. Thus, humility is deemed to be idealism and weakness rather than basic human understanding.

So as an influenced member of the present cultural thinking, are you prepared to do what is necessary to escape the insanity of overwrought self-esteem? Can you find the reality of your ability in the human family?

Acquiring humility is a simple three-step process:

1. Deal with what you see.

Dare to give yourself an honest report. There is a reason we have two eyes facing forward and two ears to the flank. It is to inform us of the actual possibilities we have, and to also warn us of limitations.

If you think you will be able to talk your way out of every situation or merely usurp a bad attitude to scare away critics, you are sorely mistaken.

2. Find what you can do.

This is what I call an honest effort. The last thing in the world you want to do if you desire to acquire humility is explain away your failures.

Finding what you can do always shortens the list of what you wish you can do, but guarantees you the ability to accomplish your realistic goals.

It is only when we are achievers that we have the opportunity to be humble. Humility without the evidence of fruit appears to be nothing more than sour grapes.

3. Finally, find what you believe.

This is what I call an honest vision. Don’t ever ask God to give you something that you’re not willing to follow up on. Don’t ask others to give you a chance if you can’t endure. Belief has no power if it’s theory. And the way you take belief out of theory is by deciding how dedicated you will be to the cause.

Humility is how we determine the substance of one another. It’s the only tool we have in our shed that works in every situation, because it allows those around us to be forewarned of our weakness…in order to truly praise our accomplishment.

In all of my numerous dealings with people inflicted by poverty, I have never met a single one who ever told me that they weren’t a “morning person.”

Matter of fact, most of them push through the terror of lack and manage a grin or two, perhaps for no other reason than to avoid a grimace.

No, I will truthfully tell you, complaining or selecting to be less than hospitable is an attribute which plagues those having enough, who pretend they are afflicted.

It causes the world to be a nasty place.

So I will tell you–it is the reasonable expectation of every human being to at least attempt to appreciate what is available and make the best of it.

I believe that with all my heart.

Therefore, to be reasonable is to have good cheer.

So I have a simple three-step process to remind me how things work, and how I might want to adjust my behavior if I want to work with things:

1. The Earth is full of situations.

Most of them are neutral. We love to tag “good” and “bad” on them based upon our mood swings.

2. I am full of ability.

This is not a conceited statement. There’s an awful lot you can do with over 200 bones–and that doesn’t even count your muscles, miles of intestine and countless clumps of blood vessels. Shall we even simply discuss the capacity of the brain? Then on top of all of these natural fortifications, we add experience. How about some inspiration? My dear God, dare I even say intuition?

It is rather doubtful that any of us are ever without means.

3. The Spirit is full of ideas.

And, by the way, if we think we’ve run out of ability and we don’t favor Earth situations, there is always the ingenious internal thought process of the Creator, available to us through the wisdom of time, history, and as some of us believe, even prayer.

Therefore, to select worry, which quickly turns most “pusses” into “sours,” is to totally ignore the provisions that have been granted to all mortal children.

• Good cheer is not a choice we make because we want to come across as positive in our thinking.
• Good cheer is the only choice to make to have a chance for any thinking to produce positive.

Into a world filled with religious intolerance, promoted by souls who deemed themselves exceptional, Jesus arrived as a contrarian.

The Jews disrespected women, hated the Samaritans and despised the Romans. Not only did Jesus refuse to participate in this national pastime, but he actually propagated the notion that women were to be treated as equals, Samaritans deserved a revival and that Caesar was to be honored for what Caesar accomplished.

For this piece of insight, the Jews gave him a cross response.

Meanwhile, in the midst of our determining whether we have the impetus to stop judging other folks, a more serious situation has settled in on the children of the Kingdom.

At times we find ourselves uncomfortably linked with religious extremists who seem to share some of our batch of prejudice. After all, ISIS does not like women, ISIS has great fear and condemnation for sexual expression of almost any kind.

So until we wake up and realize that we not only need to cease judging the world, but also need to set in motion a path to “unjudge” what has already been done, we just may find ourselves irrelevant to the next generation of searchers.

I have never owned a slave but my ancestors did.

I do not treat women as weaker vessels, but I grew up in a church and a society where females were relegated to lesser positions.

I have never personally lobbied against homosexuals and their rights as American citizens, but I lived through a time when the Moral Majority was insulting and even threatening to these brothers and sisters.

So it falls my lot, mission and joy to repent for the stupidity of the past.

Yes–I get to unjudge the world.

• I get to apologize for 400 years of slavery, segregation, Jim Crow, racial profiling and alienation.
• I get to act out acceptance and equality, to atone for the sins of mistreating women by refusing them rights and place.
• And I get a chance to preach the Gospel and let the Holy Spirit do its work instead of deciding what is wheat and what is weeds.

It is a reasonable thing–the necessary step to becoming Jesonian.

Not only do we stop judging those around us, but we allow ourselves a season of sackcloth and ashes, to admit the evil that has occurred in our history, which has forbidden racial inclusion, female equivalency with males and social liberty for all Americans.

So I apologize for my brother Paul, who one day made some sideways comments about women which ended up in a holy book, producing hurtful results.

I’m sorry for Jerry Falwell and Anita Bryant, who used the Gospel to isolate people instead of including them in the fold.

And I’m sorry that we seem to be so afraid of the world around us that we cannot allow the mercy in our souls to realize that evil does have life, but a very short span.

It is time to unjudge the world.

If we do so, we have a message for the next generation, filled with promise.

If we don’t, our religion is the dinosaur that must die so people can walk in peace on the earth.

Liberty.

Find God, discover liberty.

Stumble upon liberty, see God.

It was something that the Apostle Paul said. He equated God and liberty–an inseparable pair.

He also went on to intelligently point out that human beings initially use their liberty to generate sins of the flesh.

Yes, they do.

It does not matter. Just as free will is more important than love and law, liberty is the evidence that free will is in motion.

So what is reasonable? We deal with two dangers:

• Being so meticulous in trying to control people’s choices that we suppress human passion deep inside, where it becomes perverted;
• Or there is the danger of having an “anything goes” philosophy, which makes people think they have a free pass, creating equal peril.

Being reasonable is understanding what your job is, doing it well, and not assigning yourself the mission of quality control for others.

As human beings, we have two areas where we can interact with each other without fear or intimidation: the heart and the spirit.

At any time, I can cross paths with each and every one of you, and as long as I am trying to help you feel deeply about life or encouraging you to increase your faith, I am on solid turf, free of being a condemning force.

Yet I will tell you that your mind and your morals are your business and your business alone. I have no authority to control your thinking nor judge your choices.

The church should take this position.

We need to trust that exploding good emotion with spiritual renaissance is enough to allow human beings to renew their own minds and define their morality.

I have no intention of taking these daily essays which flow from my heart and do anything but stir your emotions and touch your spirit. It is up to you to use them to replace ideas in your brain and to reference your own behavior.

As long as we think we control the minds and morals of those around us, we are not only annoying to our brothers and sisters … but completely out of the will of God.

The producers of jonathots would humbly request a yearly subscription donation of $10 for this wonderful, inspirational opportunity

Reasonable: being able to reason.

It seems like a noble idea until you realize it requires you to sift through your beliefs and discard the unreasonable portions.

The process of becoming a good Earth-citizen is acknowledging that there are billions of others, and the goal is to find a way to peacefully co-exist with your brothers and sisters without compromising the power of truth.

So what is the first step to being reasonable?

Free will.

We are not on Earth by God’s plan, by luck or to be guided by superstition. There is a way things work and a way they don’t, and the first step in understanding that process is comprehending that every human being has free will.

1. God died for free will.

Using the flesh-and-blood passport of Jesus of Nazareth, God came to Earth and submitted to the decisions of arrogant religionists, who gave a verdict of death because he preached love.

God did nothing to stop the process. But after it was completed, He used the bravery of Jesus as evidence of salvation.

2. You have free will.

Don’t ask God to live your life. He won’t.

You may convince yourself that certain events link together to form a plan, but actually, they happened because of your action or inaction.

Jesus characterized God as Father, and no good parent would ever try to control the life of His child.

3. Human beings have free will.

Therefore you can’t force your beliefs on others.

We have to learn the power of influence.  And how do we influence people? By making them jealous of our success–so jealous that they imitate our actions in their own way, without ever giving us credit.

4. Because free will is immutable, if we’re going to impact others, we need to make sure that we’re constantly making our choices simpler and easier.

I can always tell when I’m in the presence of someone who is a novice to the human experience.

They talk about complexity.

Becoming mature is resisting difficulty.

We make progress by using our free will to find paths to greater ease and simplicity.

You will never be reasonable until you understand that human beings have been granted free will, and therefore will quite often choose ignorance over wisdom.

Selecting to blame God for this malady is not only a waste of time, but also puts you in a world of superstition … where you nervously await the next disaster.