The beginning of all knowledge and wisdom is to know one’s self.
Who and what am I?
Why am I here and where am I going?
What am I good at and how can I develop and use my talents?
Shall I utilize my talents just for myself or in the service of others?
Life without thought and reflection is to live purely by instincts.
Yet, thoughts without life or actions is to wallow in mediocrity.
The beginning of genuine love is to love one’s self.
Love is the gift of self to another.
To be able to give the other something worth giving,
I must ensure that the person that I am
Is indeed worth giving to others as a present.
It is easy to give away money and possessions to others.
Or even to give them my time and my talents.
But the true and only present worth giving in a love relationship
Is the gift of one’s self.
Knowledge is not easy to acquire. It requires a struggle.
“Knowledge makes a bloody entrance.” a wise man once said.
Learning is a painful passage from the darkness of ignorance to the light of knowledge.
The gift of self is not easy to do. I need to fashion myself into someone worth giving away.
I need to be broken and re-made into someone I can proudly share with others.
I need to break my self-centeredness and selfishness to see and love the others.
I need to break my pride and arrogance to be tender and gentle towards others.
My heart needs to be broken to fashion it into a shape that can mesh with other hearts.
The Lord is close to the brokenhearted.
So Jesus cried out in the temple area as he was teaching and said,
“You know me and also know where I am from.
Yet I did not come on my own,
but the one who sent me, whom you do not know, is true.
I know him, because I am from him, and he sent me.”
So they tried to arrest him,
but no one laid a hand upon him,
because his hour had not yet come.
John 7:25-30