Why must it be a struggle?

Go back to your very early childhood—

To those days, before trouble and sorrow had any meaning to your baby mind.

It was with zest that you set about your play—that you built your make-believe palaces—that you created things of beauty for the by and by.

Now physical life is but one stage.

When a child enters into earth life, it comes fully equipped with the gifts of the Holy Spirit.

The body may not be perfect, from a physical point of view, but that does not imply that the gifts of the Holy Spirit have been withheld.

The lack of anything or the weakness of the body does not mean that God has overlooked giving.

Take any child at its play—

Watch the toddler as he tries to walk.

There is joy in the achievement and ambition to do better.

And so it will be when this life is ended, and you emerge into that which is of the Spirit.

The moment the hold of the body is relinquished—

With those who have made the smallest effort towards better things—

The joy and the wonderment are so great that even the biggest troubles are entirely swamped by that which they have purchased.

And when the soul has started to grow, pain and suffering lose their significance as such and become stepping-stones to greater joy and peace and understanding.

Struggle it may be—

And struggle it must be—

Until self and imperfections are overcome.

But joy is so closely bound to the pain, that the pain is taken just as the easiest way of gaining the joy.

—Zodiac, The Christ Messenger