Through the Flames, Through the Floods

Daily Meditation #385–3/16/2023

The tools we seek and need to modify our surroundings can be cast into many forms. The ingot can become a gun with which we hunt or a hammer to drive nails. We are not so different.

Currently working my way through Numbers in the Bible and there was a passage I thought was interesting:

“Gold, silver, bronze, iron, tin, lead and anything else that can withstand fire must be put through the fire, and then it will be clean. But it must also be purified with the water of cleansing.”

We, too, are like these precious metals — precious. (Well, tin and lead aren’t precious, per se, but they were at that time of great utility)

And like them, we go through trials and tribulations — fire and floods of our existence.

Some of these fires and floods are literal, such as poverty, illness, or death. Others are existential, like religious challenge, meaning, or betrayal.

And just like the gold and silver, we will come out the other side purified. Reforged. And in many cases stronger and more beautiful than we’ve ever been, created into a new form we may’ve never imagined.

So, don’t shy away from the fires and floods of life.

Build up your relationships to help you withstand them.
Fortify your finances, if you can, to weather the storms.
Take care of your mind and body with good food and moving plenty.
Seek meaning in spirituality, whatever it may look like to you.

And then, when the flames lick at you and the waters pour in around you, maybe you can withstand them!

What trials and tribulations, flames and floods are threatening to engulf you, today?

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These are distillations from my coming book “YouDaimonia: the Ancient Philosophy of Human Flourishing.”