WHO GIVES ME STRENGTH?

Átila da Silva to AGAINST HANDS

A small biblical passage can sometimes go unnoticed:

ἀλλ' (ὁ θεὸς) ὁ παρακαλῶν τοὺς ταπεινοὺς...

all’ (ho theós) ho parakalōn tóus tapeinóus...

"But God, the Consoler of the downcast" (2 Co 7.6)

The Lord is near to all who suffer. If who suffer, seek in Him the support and strength what they need to face the crises and difficulties, are an endless supply of love, affection, understanding, support and power transformer.

Anyone seeking ... and delivery your own ... find the peace that can not be fully understood, but fully experienced.

God is Who comforts the downcast... We are in excellent hands!

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Personal translation of 2 Co 7.6.
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The pilgrim and the distractions in the way 3

Átila da Silva to AGAINST HANDS


To cut the pilgrimage.

To cut the reality that resembles what we think or want it to be the real is a trend very natural for one who loves and obeys the Master Jesus Christ (We, humans, are like that!).

We want to control and manipulate the contexts of life for what they say what we want to hear. It doesn't matter whether it will cut the true faith, the loyal love, the healthy fidelity, the undisputed compromises, the lucid humanity, the humbleness (and even the freedom and individuality of anyone), depriving them like elements of pilgrimage proposed by the Master.

When we started to use our existential scissors to adapt the pilgrimage to our needs, we deny the pilgrim's start point: "Whosoever will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me"... in other words: who wants to follow me, he must deny himself now and every day, take his identification with Me and follow me wherever I conduct him.

Therefore, the search of pilgrim is not a form of pilgrimage that best suits of your needs. That 'the deceived' do migrating of one a religious group to another, of a ecclesiastical proposal to another, through TV programs, by books, by preachers or cults.

The pilgrim makes clippings, yes, but in your mind, your feelings, your soul, in his convictions, in his confession of faith, in his practice life, always by the Word of the Master. Thus we find, for example, some words from Paul's letter to the Romans (12:2) - do not use the clipping of the world, but cut your mind with the renovation that lead to good, perfect and pleasing will to God.

Before you grab your existential scissors see what will be cut. The pilgrim has only one action that can and should do: cut yourself to be conformed to the image of the Master.

It's time to cut...

The pilgrim and the distractions in the way 2

Átila da Silva to AGAINST HANDS

One of our habitual tendencies is to make things with which we relate EQUAL to ourselves. That is, people, events, concepts and preconceptions, everything is repeatedly  discerned and interpreted from our own reflex.

The point of reference for the interpretation of the spiritual, emotional or material world, is ourselves.

Therefore, how much more intimacy with something or someone, how much minor the respect and awareness of their value.

The dimension of who is the other and means for us is being mimicked. One would expect a mimicry with the environment, but in our case we impose mimicry to others, to life.

This reality is a big distraction on the way to the pilgrim. Suddenly, he looks around and realizes that everything is a lot like him, giving him the false idea that he is in the overwhelming majority of the time, sure, you do not need to seek an urgent transformation and continuous, that reached anenviable level, where his worldview and his capacity for analysis and interpretation, are almost the same as Christ Jesus.

When the pilgrim leaves to see how he is and conforms the people, the concepts, the objectives, reasons for being in his image and likeness, then turn awaywalk with the Master. Keep walking, only lost in his own reflection!

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