Epiphany - A Guest Post by Dallin Ward

I used to think that when I had an epiphany or came to a new understanding of truth, I had finally come to the end of a journey and all of my problems regarding that issue would be solved. Now I am learning that such is seldom the case. It is true that one journey has ended - that's what the epiphany was - and it's also true that such an end in thought is a call to greater living. This means that instead of just understanding truth, I am now challenged to apply it to my life.

This can hurt a lot.

I've had this experience with the concept of love for the last few years, and specifically the last few months. Years and years of thinking and searching and trying to understand led me to some fantastic epiphanies and truths about love, and I feel like I understand it really well. Applying it has been quite a struggle. Love hurts sometimes. That's something I might not have been able to tell you a year or two ago. Trust me, it does. The great thing about love though is that it doesn't stop being love even when other people suffer because of loving action. Wrestling taught me about this.

For a long time, I believed that to wrestle with love was to never hurt anybody else. I thought that I couldn't wrestle really aggressively and physically and lay a beating on the guy across from me and still love him. It turns out that this is false. God never said to never hurt other people. In fact, He tells us in Proverbs that the wounds of a friend are faithful (Proverbs 27:6.) Faithful. How can that be?

It took me a long time to understand, and I could explain it to you. I'm not going to, however. I'm getting distracted from my original point. :)

The original point, and what I really want to end on, is this:

Epiphanies are the bugles of war. Once you understand greater truths, there is no turning back to the way things were before. You have something better to live for, and if you don't live for it great calamity will fill your soul. To live truthfully is a fight; a battle that can only be won because Jesus Christ is fighting too. He wants to bring you home.

Will you fight with Him?

Dallin is a friend of mine :). You can find his blog here: http://thoughtsofasimpledreamer.blogspot.com/