“While we are free to choose our actions, we are not free to choose the consequences of our actions.”

– Stephen R. Covey

Consequences are inevitable. Consequences are unavoidable. There is no action on our part that does not have a consequence attached to it. When we make a choice, we put in motion a series of events that will lead somewhere or to something – an endpoint that can be good or bad, beneficial or harmful.

That’s the thing about choices. They have consequences.

We don’t like it. We’d much rather do what we want and bear no responsibility. I’d be happy if eating half a pizza had no strings attached. I’d love it if staying up late watching TV and sleeping until noon led to no bad results. Life would be great! Or at least it would be fun.

But we can’t eliminate consequences. Life is all about the results of our choices. Life is made up of a chain of cause and effect. We choose and then we live with the consequence. That’s the way it is.

We might think it would be fun to live without consequences. We think life would be great. But look at it again. How would we learn? How would we grow? How would we get better from one day to the next if we never felt the pain of a bad move or the joy of a good one?

Here’s the deal. If consequences are inevitable, then why not embrace them? Think about it. Our choices have tremendous power. How about harnessing that power? How about using the inevitability of consequences to improve our lives? That would be the wise move.

Consequences can be your teacher. When we make a choice and experience the result, it’s instructive. Go all the way back to when you were a kid. Did your parents ever give you some instruction to follow, some warning about life? “Don’t touch the hot stove!” “Stay away from them, they’re a bad influence.” “Don’t eat that, you’ll ruin your appetite.”

Now, it would be great if you had followed every wise instruction your parent ever gave you. And as parents, we really want our kids to do the same. But let’s be honest. You and I both know that we didn’t follow every rule our mom and dad laid out. We broke one or two…and we often suffered the consequences. A burnt hand, a bruised bottom, or just a sore stomach. Or maybe, for you, the consequence was much worse.

However you lived out those consequences, you learned, didn’t you? And often those lessons were cemented into your mind even more fully than if you had simply followed the rules. Living out the cause and effect of our choices can be a great tutor for wisdom. It reinforces our past successes and failures, our current situation, and our future goals. Those three areas we always need to keep in mind as we make choices.

Your power to choose is incredibly powerful. How will you use it? Will you let it be a teacher? If you do, then you will find yourself in a much wiser place.

I’m really excited for the next several weeks. This summer we’re doing a deep dive into the book of Proverbs. We’re going to focus on wisdom, something I think we really, really need to focus on. And I’m saying that from experience. My own.

If you look around, it’s clear that wisdom is not the same thing as intelligence. You can be the smartest person in the room and still make the dumbest mistake. Just simple, unwise stuff. Intelligence is really about the gathering of information. But wisdom is much more than that. We have access to more information than at any other time in the history of mankind! But are we any wiser for it?

One of the reasons we lack wisdom is that we aren’t looking for it. We misjudge our situations, our experiences, and we’re left without learning anything from it. So we need to lean in, ask God for that wisdom, and be ready to learn when things don’t go our way – or when they do go our way.

Another reason we lack wisdom is that we don’t really grasp what this book is all about. We misunderstand wisdom when we read the Proverbs the wrong way. Let me share with you three ways we misread the book.

We look for a promise instead of a probable.

We talk about the power of the Bible, the inspiration of the Word, or the strength of scripture. Some use words like “infallible” or “inerrant.” But what does that really mean? We often think that whatever is in the Bible is absolutely, positively, 100% right all the time.

The thing is, the book of Proverbs is not a book of absolutes. It is based on the absolute truth of God’s powerful Spirit in our real lives every day. But that doesn’t mean each line is a promise to us. A better way of looking at it is this: “Here’s what will probably happen if you do this.”

Take the Proverb so many of you know by heart, Proverbs 22:6

“Start children off on the way they should go,

and even when they are old they will not turn from it.”

If that’s a promise, then all you have to do is put your kid in church from the day they’re born and never worry again. But you and I both know kids who were raised in good homes who made some major mistakes later in life. This is what will probably happen, but there’s no absolute promise involved.

We think of them as commands rather than recommendations

God wants you to live wisely. He offers it to anyone who asks. And Jesus himself is called our wisdom. So should we take every single proverb in this book and follow it line by line?

Not necessarily. You see, our command as Christians is to walk in the Spirit. If we do that, then God will work out of us. We will have love, joy, peace, and so many more good things.

But living wisely can’t come from memorizing a list and following it to the tee. It’s more about how you respond in each situation. Do you want to respond wisely? Start by creating space for the Spirit to work.

We view them as timeless and not timely

The Proverbs are so great. But they are more timely than timeless. The wisdom of Proverbs is about the skill of living. In other words, how do we wisely respond at any given time and place?

Wisdom is what we do at a particular moment in our life. It means we gather enough skills so we can make great decisions. We don’t commit the playbook to memory. We learn habits and attitudes that will produce the best results.

In order to be wise, I need to make a place for wisdom in my life. I create an environment for wisdom to grow when I trust in God, recognize that it comes through experience, lean into the relationships I develop, and learn to see things differently.

At every step in my journey, I have the chance to learn or not learn. If things go great, I can either say, “Look how awesome I am!” Or I can ask, “What can I learn from this?” If things go bad, I can beat myself up. Or I can ask, “What can I learn from this?”

Wisdom is asking. It’s asking the right questions. I invite you to ask the right questions as we continue through this great book full of Riddles of the Wise.

Growing up, I struggled with reading. I didn’t like it at all. I always took the easiest classes so I wouldn’t have to read so many books. Now, just imagine my dismay when I came to faith in Christ and was told the way to really know and hear from God was through a book! Do you want to have a good relationship with Jesus? You better get this big, thick book and read it. Every single day.

It’s not just that I didn’t like reading – and I should add, I don’t mind it anymore. In fact, I love to read. But it’s not even that the Bible is a book, it’s a big book. It’s hundreds and hundreds of pages long. And it can be confusing for some of us. Why are there books inside the book? Why aren’t all the books named after the person who wrote them? Why do some of them get sequels and some of them don’t?

Okay, so the Bible is big, it’s long, and it’s often confusing. In fact, I can tell you with certainty when people read the Bible we often disagree on what it means. There are books that are written to explain the Bible. And then other books are written to explain those books. Then there are books to explain why those books that explain the books are all wrong. It can cause quite a headache.

And yet the Christian community affirms the Bible is holy and authoritative. We use words like “divine inspiration” and “God-breathed.” If it were just any other book, we would tone the language way down. But instead, we dial it up. Because the book we call the Bible is important. It’s very important! It is the primary way that God has chosen to reveal himself to all of us who weren’t around when all of those things went down.

So what do we do with our shared belief about the importance of this book and our disagreements about what it really means? For one, we need to learn how to disagree in love. I think we need to slow down when it comes to calling someone a heretic just because they see things differently than us. The bar for calling something a bad doctrine needs to be raised a bit higher. Instead, we need to make an allowance for each other. You may not see it the way I do. I’ve spent some time studying it and you’ve spent some time reading it, too. With some respect, we can agree to disagree.

But the bigger issue, I think, is when we face certain issues in the Bible that don’t always square with what we know in our heart about Jesus. Take, for instance, times in the Old Testament when God seems to condone genocide. Or how about the whole issue of slavery? When Paul talks about wives submitting to men and being silent in the church, do you all feel a little nervous about that too?

The Bible does not always provide certainty. It’s not as clear as you and I want it to be at times. But it asks me to trust it. Somethings happen in my life I do not fully understand, but I trust that God is there. When I open the word of God, if God is present, then I can trust him to speak to me.

Part of the reason it’s difficult to read and understand the scriptures is that we come from a wrong perspective to being with. We bring our broken and limited selves into how we think about God, and that discomfort stretches us. We enter into a time of spiritual reading where we allow God to take over the text and through it, take over our lives. That is a danger to our egos. Our intellect may reject it. We get nervous when someone starts messing around in our space. But when that person is God, we need to allow it.

How are you allowing God to speak into your life? Do you need to be absolutely certain about every little detail? Or can you release your tension to God and allow him to move in the struggle? And it is a struggle, sometimes. Not just because it’s a big book, but we struggle to read it because it is important. But it’s worth that struggle.

This week at Northbrook we continued our series on spiritual practices by looking at one that we hardly ever hear about anymore, silence and solitude. But I believe it is an incredibly helpful practice. It’s something that we all need in the midst of a culture that prizes noise and busyness. Just getting alone with some peace and quietly daily.

Silence and Solitude is simply creating space in your life to be still and silent in the presence of God, to meet him just outside the busyness of your life. It is how you connect deeply with God and yourself. It’s finding a few minutes a day to sit comfortably with no distractions, no noise – nothing – and just look out a window and encounter God on his terms. That’s it. Easy and simple.

But when I mentioned it, I know that half of you were overjoyed! “Yes! Finally a pastor who tells me I can be all alone, by myself, no one else around.” That’s because you identify as an introvert. But the other half, the extroverts, felt a cold chill. “Wait…you really want me to be all alone? No one else there? No texting or talking? Help!”

I have to admit, I identify with those introverts. I really enjoy spending time alone. I don’t love crowds. It’s not that I can’t be around others. Of course I can, I’m a pastor. I have the incredible privilege of being around the best people in Wisconsin every day.

But a good vacation for me would be on an island, all alone, no one else around to bother me. Just me and the surf. Of course my wife would be there too. Can’t leave her out. But just the two of us.

And even though I’m an introvert at heart, I have to tell you that silence and solitude don’t come naturally to me. That’s because the practice of solitude is not just about being all alone.

Have you ever wondered who was the loneliest human being ever? We’ve all heard about hermits, those who live by themselves in the woods. But if they went two miles they’d be back in civilization. I’m talking about people completely isolated from everyone else.

In the early days of the church there were a group of believers called the “Desert Fathers.” That’s because they lived in the deserts of present day Syria. They would go out, by themselves, build a small building and live isolated. Miles and miles and miles from anyone else. Some of you just sighed heavily at that prospect.

There are also stories of shipwrecks in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Castaways who were left adrift in the Pacific or Atlantic Ocean for days on end. No one with them, all alone, by themselves. Miles and miles and miles of nothing but water.

But the loneliest person in the world? That would be the third man in the moon rocket. Back when we sent people to the moon, they would always have a three-man crew. Two would man the lander to the moon’s surface, while the third would orbit and wait for them to finish before rejoining him. Think of that guy. Once he reached the dark side of the moon, he was 2,225 miles away from the next human being in existence. That’s a long way! That’s almost the same distance from New York City to Los Angeles!

And another thing. When he was on the dark side of the moon, he was shut out from radio contact. So he couldn’t even speak to another human being. But being all by yourself is not the same as being isolated.

Al Worden, who circled the moon during the Apollo 15 command module pilot, said this about being all alone:

There’s a thing about being alone and there’s a thing about being lonely, and they’re two different things. I was alone but I was not lonely. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

What makes solitude and silence enjoyable? It’s not that you’re free from contact with anyone else. You’re still connected in some sense. You’re still reachable in a time of emergency. But what makes the difference is our connection. With God. With ourselves. And ultimately, with others. It is the connection that we make when we are all alone that makes being all alone worth it.

This week we started a series about practice. That’s right, we’re talking about practice. Practice is important. If you’ve ever played a sport, you know that practice is not the game, it gets you ready for the game. You practice in order to be ready when it really matters. Practice makes perfect, right?

So, we’re going to look at a few spiritual practices. Not because spirituality is a game we have to get ready for. But because when we commit to put in the work in our spirit, we will have a better relationship with Jesus, a deeper connection to God, and that’s what really matters.

The first practice we looked at is prayer. Here’s a quick definition of prayer: Prayer is conscious loving union with God. Notice I didn’t explain what words to use or how to make a request. Notice I didn’t give a preferred timeframe for how long a prayer needs to be. Notice I didn’t explain what the proper ending to a prayer is.

We often look at praying as an activity that we ought to do or should do. But what if instead of looking at prayer as an activity, we looked at it as part of our relationship with God?

Let me give you three of the prayers that I talked about briefly this weekend. I want to give you a little more details, some history even. Most of these prayers are based on ancient practices. If it was helpful to those first Christians, it can probably help us too.

1. Welcoming Prayer

This is a great way to start any prayer time. That’s why it’s called a welcoming prayer. I like to start with a few minutes of silence, and I’ll explain that in a little bit. But the first prayer can be this welcoming prayer.

This is the prayer where we invite God into our presence. Right here and right now. To inhabit the space we’ve created by turning off the phone, shutting down the email notifications, closing the door and getting quiet. We welcome him to show up.

But not just in our prayer time. We also welcome God into our lives. At any and every opportunity, we give him the right to interrupt us, to show us a better path. We invite him to be present in our victories and our failures, our joys and our sorrows. No matter what, we search to find him because we have welcomed him.

Here’s a quick script I like to use:

“Welcome, welcome, welcome.

I welcome everything that comes to me today
because I know it’s for my healing.
I welcome all thoughts, feelings, emotions, persons,
situations, and conditions.
I let go of my desire for power and control.
I let go of my desire for affection, esteem,
approval and pleasure.
I let go of my desire for survival and security.
I let go of my desire to change any situation,
condition, person or myself.
I open to the love and presence of God and
God’s action within. Amen”.

2. Breath Prayer

This is also known as a centering prayer. And it’s older than you and me – combined! In fact, it can be dated all the way back to the 6^th century out in the Syrian desert. Our faith forefathers were using this type of prayer to get closer to Jesus.

Here’s how this one works. Find a comfortable place to sit down and stay calm. No distractions. Close your eyes and remove all tension or thoughts that might bother you. Now, choose a word that you can center on, concentrate your thoughts on. It may be an attribute of God, like “peace” or “love,” or it could be his name. Whatever will help you focus your thoughts. Now, breath in and out as you focus on that word, repeating it if you have to. Your mind may wander, don’t worry. Just return to that word and let your mind center on God again.

At first, this will be very difficult. You’ll find yourself moving from anxious thought to anxious thought. You’ll want to beat yourself up for being so distracted. Don’t, though. Your goal is to do this for 20 minutes, but after the first two you’ll be sure you’ve spent an hour in prayer!

The whole point of the breath prayer is to be in the presence of God. It’s not to ask him for anything or to tell him how great he is. It’s just to be. And our breathing is the best way to come about that.

3. Daily Review Prayer

This one can be done at night or early in the morning. It’s a neat, step by step type of prayer. And it involves you actively asking and listening to God. It’s a way to examine your life. In fact, you may have heard of it by its Latin term, the examen.

There are five steps to this prayer:

1. Acknowledge an awareness of the Divine.
2. Review the day in a posture of gratitude.
3. Recognize a “Consolation” and a “Desolation” from the day.
4. Choose a “Desolation” to pray into.
5. Look with hope for new tomorrow.

Begin by acknowledging God’s presence in your life. Then, go over the major beats of your day, what went right and what may not have. Find both a good and bad thing, a “consolation” and a “desolation.” Pray into the bad thing, asking God to remove it from your shoulders. Then look forward to the next day, or the day ahead, with renewed hope in him.

And that’s it! Very simple, aren’t they? Some of them take time and concentration, sure. But they aren’t impossible. And they can be added to your daily routine pretty easily. All it takes is committing that time and energy. All it takes is practice.

 “What are you arguing about?”

That was Jesus question to his disciples. You can read It in Mark 9:30.

But it’s also the question he’s asking us today. Because it’s a question about power and position and pride.

We all suffer with pride. Because we all have trouble seeing life through any other point of view than our own. And because we suffer from pride, we have issues with grasping for power and clawing for position.

“What are you arguing about?”

What’s got into you? Why are you so upset? Why can’t you just get along? Where is this coming from?

That’s the line of questioning when we face Jesus’ question. That’s the repeated pleas when we realize our own pride is like a cancer, tearing away at our spirit and ruining our soul.

But that question is answered with a blank stare.

But they kept quiet because on the way they had argued about who was the greatest.

Mark 9:34

They kept quiet. I imagine a few of them couldn’t even look up. They turned their eyes to the ground, shuffled their feet and kicked a few rocks. Maybe a couple turned around in anger, accusing someone else of letting the argument get to that point. Or perhaps one brave soul looked up in repentance.

That last one is probably the least likely. Instead, I’m almost certain that they doubled down on their own pride.

Why do I think that? Because they remained silent. And their silence was their confession. It was an admission that something was wrong inside of them.

What did they do wrong? They combined ignorance and arrogance in a dangerous combination. They took these two ideas and mixed them in the cauldron of pride.

They were ignorant of what Jesus was trying to teach them. He had just explained that he was headed to Jerusalem to die. That the Son of Man was brought to earth to serve, not to be served. That his life was going to be a ransom for many. That only through sacrifice can salvation truly come.

And they totally whiffed on it. They missed the point altogether.

How often are we ignorant of what God has for us? We allow the pride within and the pull of the world contribute to the blindness in our heart. Instead of leaning into a sacrificial life, we crawl up on a platform and find our place on a pedestal.

But they weren’t just ignorant. They were also arrogant. They thought that no matter Jesus told them or planned, they could pull off a revolt and revolution. They had their eyes set on a seat next to the Messiah. But they were way off. Because Jesus was asking them to carry a cross. How many would be able to make that trip?

And what’s ironic is that they would get a seat next to the Messiah. Just not in the way they thought. Instead of an earthly kingdom, theirs was an eternal one. And the path to that glory was the same as for Jesus – a selfless walk to the cross. Death of our dreams so that others may live.

Our own silence is confession. When confronted with pride, what do we have to say? Nothing. Let’s sit in that silence for a moment. Let’s allow it to fulfill a change of heart. And let’s give in to God’s designs and plans for us. Instead of being quick to reply, let’s wait until we are ready to move forward in humility.

What are you doing with your fears? We all have them. We each have moments in our lives when we get scared, we start to sweat, we shake just a little bit. Why? Because fear is normal and natural. It’s the bodies response to the unknown, the uncertain.

Life is full of uncertainties. Therefore, life is full of things to fear. We don’t deal with our fears by removing every uncertainty from our lives. And we don’t deal with our fears by training ourselves not to be scared of uncertainties. If we actually lived our lives with no fear, we’d be in trouble. We would constantly be taking unnecessary risks. And that would lead to a lot of trouble.

But when fear becomes the default, overriding reaction of our lives, we’re in trouble anyway. It’s not about having no fear, it’s about not letting fear control you.

So how do we go from fearful to peaceful? How do we make it so that fears no longer creep up our back, wrap around our neck and cause us to choke? It’s all about living in the midst of uncertainties with a certain amount of certainty.

Jonathan Fields tackles this in his book Uncertainty. Catchy title. One of the things he suggests is building “Certainty Anchors” into your life. Now, in his book he recommends quite a few things as certainty anchors, including some Easter practices that I don’t agree with. But there are some other things that I do like, that are actually biblical. Like meditation and prayer.

Fields says that we need to build into our lives actions that are certain. It may be a specific schedule you keep. Or it can be a certain phrase that you repeat. When fear starts to creep in, you go to that anchor and find a steady response. You find your center, in other words.

Now, here’s where it gets real biblical for me. He says that some of those anchors can be spending time in focused meditation or prayer. He suggests setting aside time daily to do this. You’re thinking what I’m thinking, right? That sounds a lot like what we in Christian circles call devotions.

This may surprise you, but the Bible talks a lot about meditation. “Keep this Book of the Law always on your lips; meditate on it day and night” (Joshua 1:8). That means, pick a passage from the Bible, read it, then think about what it means to your life. Simple!

The Psalms are full of instruction on meditation:

Psalm 77:12

I will consider all your works and meditate on all your mighty deeds.

Psalm 119:27

Cause me to understand the way of your precepts,

that I may meditate on your wonderful deeds.

Psalm 143:5

I remember the days of long ago;

I meditate on all your works and consider what your hands have done.

Psalm 48:9

Within your temple, O God, we meditate on your unfailing love.

That last Psalm is very important. We meditate on God’s word, his deeds, his actions in our past, his blessings in the world. But above all, we meditate on his unfailing love.

Perfect love. It casts out all fear. When you get afraid, think about his love. Meditate on it. In fact, before you get afraid think about it. Spend some time each day thinking about how much he loves you. That will put in your mind his words, his deeds, and his actions that are defined by his love. And when a fear creeps up on you – and it will! – just go to that place in your mind where you’ve trained yourself on his love. Embrace it and let God erase your fear.

A little over a week ago it was Easter, and that’s a pretty big deal here at Northbrook. Not just because we see our one of our biggest crowds of the year, with so many first-time guests. And if you were a first-time guest, we’re so glad you chose to spend Easter with us. But that’s not it, although that’s a good reason to put our best foot forward and serve you.

But the real reason that Easter is such a big deal is because of what happened on the first Easter, the resurrection of Jesus. That’s the whole reason we exist as a church. That’s the whole reason we are Christians. That’s the whole reason that we put our faith in God. If Jesus had stayed in the grave, then there’d be no reason to keep meeting.

On that very first Easter, after the resurrection, John tells us that the first thing Jesus did was ask a question. “Who are you looking for?” He asked that of one of his followers, Mary Magdalene.

But I think that question is as relevant today as it was nearly 2,000 years ago.

This week we started a series about five questions that Jesus asked in scripture. Those questions have historical and literary contexts to them, sure. But they also represent questions we need to keep asking. If we are seekers, seeking God and his best for our lives, then you could say we’re on a quest. And every quest begins with a question, just like the word question begins with quest.

Jesus was great about asking questions. What I really love is how he would be asked a question, and then flip it and answer with another question. He stood trial against Pilate and the Jewish officials and was asked, “Jesus, who are you?” His answer was, “Who do you say I am?” We may find ourselves in that same situation.

“God, where are you?”

And he may reply, “Where are you?”

“Jesus, can you help me out here?”

And he may reply, “Can you help me out by helping one of my little ones?”

But let’s back to that first question he asked outside the empty tomb, “Who are you looking for?” He asked Mary that question because she was having trouble recognizing him. Maybe it was the early morning light, or perhaps it was the tears in her eyes. But she looked at Jesus and saw…a gardener.

When we look at Jesus, we often see all kinds of things. A ticket taker, stamping our ticket to Heaven. A businessman, managing our religious transactions. A lawyer, defending us before his angry Father.  These metaphors are incomplete.

One of the best pictures in all of scripture of Jesus is this one – the Gardener. Go back to the beginning of John’s gospel. What does he say about Jesus? That he was there before time began, and he was there at creation. In fact, he was the one who created everything. Adam and Eve in the garden. He was the first gardener.

What do gardeners do? They get their hands dirty. And Jesus did the same. He bent down, scooped up handfuls of clay, and shaped them into a man, Adam. That first act of creation was one of gardening.

But he’s still our gardener today. He bends down into our lives. He reaches into the dirt and clay of our sins and molds and reshapes us. He breathes life back into our hearts. He plants. He waters. He grows.

As we continue our look at these five questions of Jesus, remember that he is the one working in the soil of your lives. It can be intimidating to face tough questions. But it can also be freeing. So allow him to dig into the dirt and clay, let him shape and move you around a bit. And accept his breath of life. That’s the beginning of our quest together.

The word hope is kind of a funny word. It can either mean something amazing and eternal and incredible…or it can be the most casual word we ever use. We can use it to describe heaven and Jesus and salvation…or whether we get ice cream tonight.

“I hope it doesn’t snow on Easter.”

“I hope the Brewers have a winning season this year.”

“I hope I get that job.”

“I hope I get a good parking spot at Target.”

“I hope my kids get into a good college.”

“I hope my kids don’t fight over the remote tonight.”

Hope is the emotional bridge that Jesus builds with his followers. It was on full display during the “Triumphal Entry,” the story Matthew 21 where Jesus comes into Jerusalem for the Passover festival, his final journey to the cross, the grave, and the resurrection. The people were cheering for him! “Hosanna! God, save us! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!”

What he had to offer was hope. What they assumed was a conquering hero, a man ready to fight the Roman oppressors, a return to the glories of Israel’s past. What they got looked a lot different – a man on a donkey, the king coming in peace, willing to die. What Jesus offered was hope. But many of them missed it.

Jesus offers us hope for today. When the alarm goes off but you hit snooze too many times and you rush out the door and your daughter is complaining about her hair for the thousandth time and you need to get to work but there’s a wreck on the way… And when your boss says, “I’m so sorry” but hands you the layoff notice anyway and the car will cost more than twice the amount you thought to fix and your husband seems even more distant… Jesus offers hope.

And we sometimes don’t get it because we don’t notice it or recognize it. We want a white knight on a shining steed. But we get a man on a donkey. But his hope is always greater than our despair.

Jesus offers us hope for eternity. When you go to bed at night and the doubts start to seep in again and you’re not sure how to answer that question from your son about how exactly we know that Jesus rose again and the world is both a wonderful gift and a broken chaos… Jesus offers hope.

The eternal hope of Jesus is not an escape. We’re not just biding our time until we can get out of here. His eternal hope is tied directly to his everyday hope. Jesus offers hope for today that begins now and stretches to eternity. You may not see it because it’s just way too big. But it’s there.

When we lean into our relationship with God, we can get a deeper sense of that hope. It may take a moment of silence to begin each day, patiently waiting for him to clear the fog and reset our vision. But he will be there. Extending a hand of hope.

I’ve asked you to spend some time in self-reflection this week. To create some space in life to take a deep look at yourself, at what is going on inside. Reflect on a bit on your life, what is important. And examine what is going on, your motivations and your values. When we see ourselves more clearly, we see God more clearly.

Self-reflection is not inviting God to know me, he already does. It’s inviting him to help me know me. It’s getting to know about you in a very specific way. And it’s powerful too!

Tasha Eurich studies self-reflection and its effect on CEOs, executives, and business leaders. She wrote about it in her book simply called Insight. Her research has shown that people who are self-aware are happier, make better decisions at work and at home, and even raise more mature children. But when we’re delusional about ourselves, we frustrate and alienate the people around us too.

But self-reflection doesn’t mean that we don’t like ourselves. When we see ourselves clearly, we shouldn’t be afraid of what we see. It’s when our self-vision is cloudy that we’re more likely to not see what we like. In fact, Eurich points out that those who have clear self-reflection are more forgiving of others and accepting of themselves. They have higher empathy and make better friends.

So, what does her research say about putting this into practice?. What I really liked about her work is that she identified seven pillars of insight, different things we need to be looking for when we undergo self-reflection. I think if you need to have an outline as you go through your moment of self-reflection this week, then this is it.

1. Values

These are the core set of principles that guide how we want to live our lives. This is what’s most important to you. You can think of them as non-negotiables. You can change or adapt where you live, what you do for a living, or even who you hang out with. But your values will never change.

Ask yourself, “What do I really care about?”

2. Passions

This is what we love to do. What gets you up in the morning, what you’re interested in, and what you just can’t live without. You may have a passion for teaching, for the ’82 Brewers, needlework, leading – it doesn’t matter! It’s up to you.

Ask yourself, “What really gets me going?”

3. Aspirations

Passions are what you love to do, but aspirations are where you want to go. It’s what we want out of life. It involves your occupation, your family relationships, and the goals you set. But it’s so much more than that. It’s thinking long-term about your life and how you intend to get there.

Ask yourself, “Where am I going?”

4. Fit

This is the type of environment you need to be happy and engaged. It can be your workplace, your neighborhood, where you want to go to school, but also includes the type of people you fit in with. We don’t all fit together all the time. I love that church is a place where different can be the same. But that doesn’t mean we have to be around each other all the time. What’s your fit?

Ask yourself, “What do I need to be fulfilled?”

5. Patterns

These are the consistent ways of thinking, feeling, and behaving across situations. Not just when things are going good, but when things don’t always go your way. Actions lead to behaviors over time, and that’s your patterns.

Ask yourself, “What am I thinking and doing?”

6. Reactions

Your the thoughts, feelings, and behaviors when you respond to others. When something happens to you, how do you react? We all have our own set of reactions that can define your life.

Ask yourself, “What are my triggers?”

7. Impact

Finally, this is how our behavior affects others. We often think of self-reflection as all about me. But this is where we take into account those around us. When I get moody, who’s watching and taking notes? When I respond the wrong way, who gets hurt. But when I act thoughtfully, who gains from that?

Ask yourself, “What legacy am I leaving behind?”

Next time you spend time in self-reflection, try using these seven ideas as a guide.