The gift of life marks the start of our journey.
A new Exodus is making its escape on the trail that Jesus blazed through the hostile desert of godlessness from slavery under the yoke of Pharaoh, across the Red Sea of death, to freedom with God and his Holy Family in the promised land. We either participate in the new Exodus or we try to blaze our own trails through the hostile desert of godlessness. In any case, better to be pilgrims passing through the Valley of Tears than settlers who have put down roots into its toxic soil.
The gift of life is God's first gift on our journey. However, it is not the only gift that our God gives us. God also gives us the gift of paradise. The gift of paradise can be delivered to us at any stage of our journey through life
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When does God deliver the gift of paradise to us?
With Lucifer, the gaggle of angels who follow Lucifer, Eve, Adam and the prodigal son, God delivered the gift of life and the gift of paradise simultaneously. This delivery schedule, however, did not work. It was a failure. All of them fumbled the ball. They let the gift of paradise slip through their fingers.
Therefore, to make sure that the children of Adam and Eve keep the gift of paradise when it is delivered to us - and its delivery is ineluctable - God tweaked the schedule. He changed his gift-giving policy. God adjusted his policy to address the fact that his creatures, in the exercise of their free wills, were pissing away paradise. They were acting contrary to their self-interest. They were shooting themselves in the foot. So, instead of a policy of simultaneous delivery, God instituted a policy of sequential delivery. For the children of Adam and Eve, God inserted a delay between the gift of life and the the gift of paradise.
What is the place between the gift of life and the gift of paradise?
Between the gift of life and the gift of paradise, God forged the Valley of Tears . The Valley of Tears is the vessel that holds the ruins of Eden. The Valley of Tears is as foul as Eden was fair - as hostile as Eden was hospitable. Poverty is not a pocket empty of coin but a heart empty of love. In utter poverty, we scavenge in the ruins of Eden like the most miserable and hideous of loveless beasts. The Valley of Tears is a torture chamber. As grist goes through the mill or as meat goes through the grinder, we go through the Valley of Tears. As we pass through the Valley of Tears, we eat the bread of adversity and drink the water of affliction . The rod is not spared on the children of Adam and Eve in the Valley of Tears. Spare the rod and spoil the children
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In the Valley of Tears, God lets us put our fingers into the flames to learn for ourselves that the fire is hot. Ouch! Experiencing the truth for ourselves packs a more persuasive punch than any verbal warnings about it no matter the source of the warnings. God is the artist who paints the masterpiece of reality on the canvas of our rationality in the pigments of truth. “And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free” .
Why does God baptize us in the toxicity of the Valley of Tears? Why does he let us stew in the Valley of Tears like pickles in a barrel of toxic brine? Why does he let us put our fingers in the flames?
Our baptism in the Valley of Tears is the treatment that cures our butterfingers. It stops the children of Adam and Eve from repeating the original sin of their parents. The delay between the gift of life and the gift of paradise is harsh but effective medicine. The delay puts iron in our grip. When the gift of paradise is delivered to us, we will keep it. We will not fumble the ball. We know better than to let the gift of paradise slip through our fingers. The alternative is just too horrible. By stewing in the toxicity of the Valley of Tears for a lifetime, almost all of us experience the epiphany of the prodigal son.
"And when he came to himself, he said, How many hired servants of my father's have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger!" . The prodigal son will never go back to the pig sty; neither will we.
Moreover, our baptism in the Valley of Tears defangs the serpent. It drains the serpent's great lie of its power to deceive. The serpent promised that we would become gods without God in the Valley of Tears . God warned us that without God we would die . Our intimate contact with the hostile truth in the Valley of Tears tells us that the serpent was a liar and that God told us the truth. Our experience lowers the credibility of the serpent and raises the credibility of God. As credibility grows, verbal warnings become more persuasive and they can substitute for intimate contact with the truth itself.
Is God indifferent to the direness of our predicament in the Valley of Tears?
Against the backdrop of our slog through the hostile territory of the Valley of Tears, across the Red Sea of death, and into the safety of the kingdom of God, God has taken measures to mitigate the direness of our predicament. God has taken steps to dull the sharp edges of the medicine. The measures that God has taken dilute the toxicity of the Valley of Tears in the same way that sugar cubes dilute the bitterness of a cup of bad coffee. Dilution is God's solution.
The first thing that God did to mitigate the direness of our predicament in the Valley of Tears was to set an upper limit on the amount of time we stew there. The brevity of life proves the mercy of God. Life is but an infinitesimally thin slice of time compared to the thickness of eternity. Moreover, it gets thinner and thinner with the passage of time. In other words, it won’t be long now before God delivers the gift of paradise to us.
To mitigate the direness of our predicament in the Valley of Tears, God did not just make our lives short. God dispatched his dearly beloved Son to deliver to us the "grease" with which we can lubricate the wheels of our passage through the Valley of Tears. Jesus hung from his Cross to teach us how to hang from our crosses. As we tortured and killed him, He clung to love, held tight and refused to let go. His most Sacred Heart stayed filled to the brim with love for us. Therefore, cling as Jesus clung. Hang as Jesus hung - to love.
We are made in the image and likeness of God . He endowed us with the capacity to love . Our hearts are vessels that can be filled to the brim with love. The greater the love that we hold in our hearts, the greater is our resemblance to God. A saint is a child of Adam and Eve who bears an uncanny resemblance to God. “By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.“
. Love deifies us.
How does God fill our hearts to the brim with love?
Only love begets love. Words do not. "We love him, because he first loved us" . Jesus launched a chain reaction of love. From his heart, our hearts receive a transfusion of love. The transfusion of love is invigorating. It vivifies us. It brings the dead to life . Love is the ingredient that makes paradise sweet. The sweetness of paradise is the honey that draws the bees back home to the hive.
How did Jesus reveal to us the truth that God loves us dearly?
Jesus revealed God's love to us by staging a violent collision between himself and the evil that we did to him on the road from the Crucifixion to the Resuurection. The byproduct of the collision revealed God to us.
The violent collision was bigger than the Big Bang and larger than CERN's Large Hadron Collider .
Incandescent truths about God erupted as a byproduct of the violent collision.
The incandescent truths illuminated the darkness of our understanding of God in a glorious burst of epiphany.
Out of the violent collision, Jesus produced the "similitude" of God for us to behold . In the byproduct of the violent collision, Jesus gave us a taste of the sweetmess of paradise. Forgiveness was the sweet byproduct of the violent collision. To know forgiveness is to know God. To know God is to have eternal life .
What is Paradise?
Paradise is a heart filled to the brim with love. Nothing more; nothing else.
What is the purpose of life?
The purpose of life is to fill our hearts to the brim with love - to perfect our resemblance to God.
What benefits are produced when we achieve our purpose in life?
When our hearts are filled to the brim with love, it becomes possible for us to pour the sweet fruits of love into the Valley of Tears to dilute its toxicity in the same way that sugar cubes dilute the bitterness of a cup of bad coffee. Always remember that dilution is God's solution.
To defeat evil in the Valley of Tears, God dispatched his dearly beloved Son to be the conduit for the transfer of a technology from heaven to earth that defeats evil .
What is the advanced, alien technology that Jesus put into our hands?
Love. Love is the advanced, alien technology that Jesus brought from heaven to earth to defeat evil. . Love is toxic to evil. The seeds of evil do not grow in the soil of love. Love smothers evil as water smothers fire.
God delivers to us the gift of our creation and the gift of paradise. Both gifts were delivered to Adam and Eve simultaneously. God inserted a delay between the delivery of the gift of creation and the gift of paradise with regard to the children of Adam and Eve. Why?