Year End Reflections 2010 - Looking Back
As 2010 draws to a close I have started to reflect on where I am and where I was a year ago. What things has God taught me over the last year and where do I believe I am headed this coming year? To do this I am following the format of The Grand Examen, a tool used to reflect and discern the events of the last year.
Looking Back -
The question here is what has God been teaching me this last year? Three things almost immediately jumped into my mind - community, personal soul care, and practical faith.
Community has been a thought that i have spent the last couple of years on. I should clarify this by saying the importance of community with regards to ones spiritual growth. It is vital that we not only write and edit our own story, but it is important to allow others to edit our story and if allowed edit other peoples stories. As Christ-followers we grow and mature as we learn to tend to our own soul care, but we need the eyes and wisdom of other to look at our blind spots or help us make sense our of what God is doing in our life. Community is also important in the exercising of our spiritual gifts.
In terms of personal soul care, I have three documents that help guide me in this area. One is my personal life platform that spells out the beliefs and values I hold and helps to see that I am living them out in my life. The second is my personal life mandate. This is a document that I can use as I evaluate different opportunities, to see if they fall within the trajectory that God seems to be laying out for my life. The third writing is my personal action plan. This document lays our some specific action items I need to work on in all areas of my life. I regularly return to these documents, read them, make some personal assessments, update where needed, make course corrections in my life to continue to deepen my relationship with God and others.
The last thing I have been learning is the value of a practical faith or practical theology. It is about living out what I say I believe. It's about being God's hands and feet on planet earth. This notion really began to stir in me in late 2010 so I haven't fully grasped what this will look like for me or in me.
I have one writing theme that has emerged - actually it is more a consolidation of a number of ideas - and my be the topic of my doctoral thesis. It is exploring the idea of "Becoming who we already are." If we are, like Paul states, a new creation in Christ how does this effect our theology, beliefs/values, Christian praxis, and our relationships with God and others?
The next section will take a look forward.
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