If you were never presented with some advantage to be gained
by dishonesty, such as recognition, or money, or a better grade on a test or
avoidance of punishment or embarrassment, you could never develop integrity.
If
no one ever offended you, you could never learn to forgive or internalize mercy.
Were you never wearied by the annoying behavior of another or the repeated
failures of someone else you could never become patient.
Were you never
subjected to the appetites and passions of the physical body for food, for
water and for sexual fulfillment you could not develop self-mastery.
Without opposition
the plan would be frustrated, you could not progress and the purpose of life
would be unachievable.
In short when you choose to follow Christ you move forward
and assimilate attributes of light; when you do not, you move backward and
acquire attributes of darkness.
Can you see, have you seen, who you want to be? What will
happen if you don't plan? What will happen if you have no vision of who you
want to become?
There are two ways of evolving: deliberately and
accidentally. You can either decide who you want to become and deliberately
work toward that end, or you can just go with the flow and become whatever life
makes of you. In that event, you will become whatever the fickle circumstances
and forces of life and society will make of you; whatever is currently
considered to be popular or in; whatever is easiest. But, whatever you become
accidentally it will not be nearly the full measure of our potential. You will
become just someone, somewhere in the middle.
-Lawrence Corbridge
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