The Process and the Pearl with Todd Tomasella and Travis Bryan III

The World As Our Oyster: Hold On To What Irritates You. 

Hold within your heart those things that irritate, agitate and give you pain. Don't lash back or pass them on to someone else. Don't retaliate against it, marinade in it. Hold the working of the cross within your heart as you die daily. 1 Cor 15:31.

We need this creative tension of opposites working simultaneously within ourselves. When your peace meets the reality of this fallen world there will be inevitably be irritation and pain.  Don't try to run from it, numb it, avoid it or block it out. Hold it close in faith. Hold it within your peace.  God will then transform (Rom 12:1-2) both it, you and others around you with resurrection life, spiritual growth, blessing, insight, joy and understanding.

This is what it means to "embrace the cross." Embrace, as transformative, those moments where people cause you to suffer and when circumstances annoy you, won't let you have your way, or remove you from your comfort zone.

This is the cross coming to you. This is how God uses opposition to mold you into the image of His Son.  We are made "conform able to Him in His death. Phil. 3:10.

Paul wrote, "I always bear about in my body the dying process (the cross) of the Lord Jesus in order that His life (resurrection life and power) might be manifested in my mortal body. 2 Cor 4:10. The ego self is being lessened.

Christ as the new creation new man grows within and comes forth in and through you.

This process is pictured in nature by the growth of the pearl within an oyster and its shell. An irritant like a grain of sand remains within the soft tissue of the oyster. The natural processes work to seal off the irritant but at the same time a secretion is released within the shell that forms the beautiful pearl. The pearl is used in the Bible to symbolize the formation of the new creation.