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A young man hid in the hills of Crete, and a stranger asked him the way to Phenix.
Trouble will invigorate you; disappointment will spur you on; difficulties will challenge you; and obstacles will stimulate you.
Jesus was in the mountains of Crete, about A.D. 23, traveling as tutor to Ganid and companion to the boy's father, Gonod. The record says the travelers had gone to the island to walk about and to climb the mountains. Up in those hills Jesus met a young man who was fearful and downcast, a youth who had grown up feeling helpless and inferior, and who had lost his father at twelve. He had come to the hills to get away from people. Jesus asked him the best route to Phenix, and the young man marked out the trails on the ground. Then Jesus turned back to him. Before long the youth was kneeling, begging for a way out of his sorrow and defeat. Jesus told him to get up and stand like a man.
The line comes at the end of a long talk, and the record places it after Jesus has gone through what this young man already had: a strong body, a clear and capable mind, and the spirit which lives within him. The account has Jesus telling him that he was trying to run away from his unhappy self, and that it could not be done, and that his equipment was useless while he sat on the mountainside and grieved over his misfortunes, real and fancied (130:6.3). Only after all of that does the promise about trouble, disappointment, difficulties, and obstacles arrive. The four things the youth had been fleeing are the four things named as the fuel of the new life. The record gives the outcome in a single sentence. This youth, Fortune, later became the leader of the Christians in Crete and the close associate of Titus in his labors for the Cretan believers (130:6.5). Earlier in the same paper the account notes that Jesus loved these Cretans, and that Paul would later send Titus to the island to reorganize their churches (130:5.1). The frightened young man on the trail is the one the record names as the local leader when that work came. The section that holds this talk is headed The Young Man Who Was Afraid. The same theme returns in Corinth, where Jesus tells a runaway lad, “there are two things you cannot run away from—God and yourself” (133:4.11). On that same island sojourn Jesus said to Ganid, “My tomorrow is wholly in the hands of my Father in heaven” (130:5.3), and the record presents his stopping for a stranger on a mountain trail as part of that same life of doing the Father's will.
fear · depression · courage · grief
Fifteen situations. Each one gathers lines the record spoke into that same situation, printed word for word, with the person and the place they were said to. A path names a situation. It does not prescribe.
Choose a situation. The lines that follow were said into that same situation, to a named person, in a real place.
A new scene on Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday. Six weeks, then the library begins again.
A fatherless young man hiding from people, convinced he is helpless.
A young person who keeps leaving instead of facing what is in front of him.
A team so frayed and overwhelmed that its leader cannot think straight.
Someone whose ambitions have stalled and whose pride is bruised, asking why happiness comes so easily to others.
A young worker stuck under an unjust boss, wondering why nobody in heaven does anything about it.
A woman running a small business whose days have become drudgery.
A successful professional whose career is outpacing everything else in his life.
A person whose job is to decide other people's fates, and who has to be fair about it.
Someone whose venture has failed and who is working hard to make it look like success.
Someone facing a decision who has not yet admitted what the real problem is.
A father in Egypt teaching his son about money, honesty, and fear.
A wealthy man unsure what to do with his money.
Two brothers fighting over their dead father's property.
A wealthy young man who wanted the job but not the price.
A husband who lost his temper and attacked his wife in public.
A mother who refused to leave until someone saw her sick daughter.
A young man hearing how his parents' love and wisdom shaped him.
Two friends who could not agree about how forgiveness works.
Two young people leaving a hostile family, with a hiding place already prepared.
A father coming home to his family after thirty days alone with his mistake.
Someone asking why a good person is suffering.
Staying loyal when the people in charge have gone bad and no help is coming.
A skeptic who wonders whether his doubting disqualifies him.
A committed man whose cause is collapsing in front of him.
Someone facing the consequences of a terrible mistake that cannot be undone.
Someone holding a grudge, or stuck brooding after a hard loss.
Anyone asking why life has to be this hard.
Someone lying awake over things that have not happened.
Someone deciding how to respond to a person who has treated them badly.
A capable, ambitious man giving up the plan he had built his life around.
AN, the Sumerian sign that stood before the name of a god, stands here before the book’s own words, and only after the line has been checked against the text at its citation.
KI, the earth, stands before the observation: what the text does in that place, on that day, to that person. Never what you should do.
The series takes its name from a guardian seraphim’s testimony on Salvington: “Such a life on such a planet!” (111:7.5). Every line on this page can be checked by anyone, in one click, at /verify.
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