The true test

of knowledge is application. I've said this in a variety of ways but still feel the need to re-emphasize this. Bottom line really is - if we know something, how do we know we know without testing and applying it? Can't. Infer, yes. Presume, yes. See evidences in others, yes. But personal understanding is always the 'proof in the pudding'. This approach can be applied to everything and before you tell me that you can know something without 'doing' something about or with it - I'm not convinced.

Consciously or not, our behavior and words are based on our standard, on our approach to life and others. Unarguable. But then the question is: what is our behavior and words based in? How have we come to the particular stance we take? Was it by trial and error? Perhaps by pain? But it also had to come by the path of 'enlightenment' - your discovery and subsequent adoption/adaptation into your own lifestyle and expression. Do you know and appreciate how you got to where you are? 

Regardless, at some point you had to stop thinking and put action to the words. And then you had to decide how your understanding was changed, refined by your actions. The process is as important as the final discovery. Process is a formula, tool we can repeat in order to continue our growing. Serendipitous is terrific but this can never be the only way we form our foundation and structure that is who we are.

I have always found that the proving is the confidence builder. Challenges, whether from others or circumstances, are important to build further confidence that what I think, believe is worth it. And all this begins when I act on what I say I think and believe. The last point is that nothing, other than the Lord, is in cement. There are always new discoveries that will test the application's stand.