 It is only mature people that can hold two opposing thoughts in the head at the same time and yet the ability to do that makes us much more able to understand the complexities of life which therefore makes us much more able to relate to and connect with people and understand and interpret people's lives to them. I think historically in the church world certainly we have not been good and we have not even celebrated people's ability to hold two seemingly opposing thoughts in our head at the same time, but that is what life is about. That life is about success and it's about failure and the failures in life don't have to be made to sound like there really were successes as if we are not able to cope with the concept of failure. So we have to tidy up all the time and kind of either ignore it and kind of cover it up and just talk about our successes because life is about both, life is about loyalty and betrayal. Both of these things were fully present in Jesus's life all the time and I don't find him pretending that the seeming opposite of a positive was a threat to him and something to not be spoken about. In fact he would very openly say that to his disciples. He would talk about the end of his life and he would talk about the cross and they couldn't cope with it. So they would say no it won't happen and we're not going to let it happen. They couldn't cope with the idea that he was here now to be the savior of the world but he was going to have to go through something terrible in order to achieve that. Life is about opposites. Life is about contrast. Life is about opposing ideas opposing forces that are at work in and through all our lives and I want you to not be afraid of those opposing ideas and those opposing things going on in and through your life at this time but I want you to make friends with and try to understand and appreciate that there's value in winning and there's value in losing that there's value in gain and there's value in loss and we can learn from both and we can grow from both but I often find especially in the church world it's kind of no don't speak to us about loss and betrayal and failure because that is not faith and that is not positive and that is not supernatural and that is not and it's a nonsense because we are growing small people who can't cope with the reality of life which includes all those other seeming opposing things too and over the years many things that I have taught have come from this opposing idea to what we all just consider to be the only thing to talk about and what I want to do is build people that are equipped for that range of life's experiences that come to them sometimes you win sometimes you lose sometimes we go forward sometimes we seem to go back good let's learn from both let's embrace let's find a wisdom in both and let's speak and teach and grow from both the immature can't do that and so I'm talking to mature people today and I'd like you to think about that and where you struggle with that and try and do better at that because it will make you a more mature stable person and that will be a gift to those people around you who are threatened by one I just want to focus on the other both have their place in life and let's get better at that