"Know Thyself"

Everything has value, but not everything has the same value.  We can appreciate the "good" things for what they add to our lives according to their relative worth, merit or importance.  Timing often comes into play as far as our ability to receive the value of something or someone and their "goodness" as a benefit to our lives.  Is there value in the "bad" things that come our way as well?  What makes something "good" or "bad"?  Is it in the nature of the thing itself or is it how we interpret its effect on our current state of comfort?  Can we receive the value of something or someone and their "badness" as a benefit to our lives as well?  Perhaps to observe or experience the pain of the "bad" can teach us how to look for and even how to become the "good" in our own or someone else's life?  The pain of touching the flame of fire does not make the fire "bad", but rather, helps to define proper boundaries for the use of its nature for the "good" of warmth, light, fuel, etc.  The same fire that consumes the wood, hay, and stubble also purifies the gold.  In both cases there is a removal of something (cleansing factor) and an added value, whether warmth, fuel, beauty, or currency.  Is the fire "bad" when it consumes and "good" when it purifies?  Could not both the consuming and purifying processes cause pain?  Do not both the consuming and purifying processes yield a benefit to our lives with "good" value on the other side of the process?  Perhaps our assessment of the "goodness" or "badness" of a thing has more to do with our own unique nature, circumstance, and perspective at the time…

My youngest son has a tattoo down the length of his calf that says "KNOW THYSELF" in Greek letters.  I didn't really understand the meaning when he got it several years ago.  I think I "get it" now.  Sometimes the adult way that we look at the "bad" (i.e. painful) things of life in order to make sense of them causes us to go into denial of who we are through pain avoidance by allowing the fire to consume the evidence of such things without receiving the benefit value that they were intended to add to us.  Other times, we choose to leap over the heap of confusion left on the path in front of us, judging it as junk unworthy of our attention and a hindering of our progress when actually taking the time to search through the wreckage for purified "golden nuggets" would add precious value to the person we are becoming and the life ahead of us.  We'd rather build "good" and "bad" memorials along the path than to quiet our judgments long enough to hear the innocent voice of the child within who is the blueprint of a wonderfully made creation with a unique calling and destiny that is only known to the Creator and the child.  The unwarped image of the child within knows that it is precious gold, but we lose ourselves amidst the voices of humanity that have called us straw men.  They don't regard our unique nature or value and so we come to believe their lie in the burned wreckage of life's journey.  We can't change history, but knowing it and knowing ourselves can add value to our present and future experiences as we press on to becoming the fullness of His unique expression in the earth.  We prefer to "stop and smell the roses" along life's journey, avoiding the paths with briar thickets or heaps of rubble. Perhaps the greater value is found in the willingness to forge a new path through the thicket or to look through the wreckage searching for the purified gold nuggets and determining to "KNOW THYSELF" more fully in the process of the journey through the fire, not allowing it to consume us, but to purify us as gold.

"When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned or scorched…for I AM the Lord your God, your Savior." (Isaiah 43:2-3 Amplified Bible)