1.) Am I lingering in the Lord?
If Jesus is the source and wellspring of all that is good,
meaningful, and faithful, am I attending to Him well so that He might tend well
to my life? Do I linger, giving him
space to speak, lead, convict, love and encourage? Do I treat my time with Him as an obligation
to get through?
2.) Have I found ways to justify my time away from the spring
of living water...or replaced it with a distraction?
In John 4, Jesus suggests that He is the Living Water
that brings life. Sometimes we wander from the spring of living water, thinking
we can do well in the land without it. We give ourselves permission, making up
excuses, “I’m too busy.” (etc.) Have I
grown distracted with gaming, social media, and binge-watching, contributing to
my time away from grace?
3.) Do I give the Spirit of God space to bridle my tongue
keeping me from unkind, unwise, uncaring, and unfaithful words?
Am I rash, abrasive, and ill-tempered with my words? Do I
demean, condescend, react unprayerfully, spread gossip, or speak maliciously?
Faithfulness in attending to regular rhythms of spiritual formation ensures
that when we speak, we’ve done so first giving space to the Spirit to bridle
our often unruly tongue.
4.) Do the words I speak and the ways in which I speak them reflect
to the Biblical call toward gentleness, peace-making, being full of grace and
seasoned with salt?
Out of the mouth flows the thoughts of the heart. A heart
surrendered will reflect the Scriptural truth that our words carry power and
often create our environments. What type
of environment am I creating?
5.) Am I currently prone to breaches in integrity because of
exhaustion, frustration, bitterness, or spiritual lethargy?
In the end, all we have is our integrity. I believe that
with all my heart. No matter what we’ve accomplished, if that is not consistent
with the way in which we’ve faithfully lived our lives, our accomplishments will
be overshadowed by our lack of character. There are many sabotage artists to
our integrity. Our practices of spiritual formation ensure that we guard against
such breaches.
6.) Am I currently harboring the seeds of sin and
systematically shutting out voices that might call me, in love, on that sin?
Once we’ve become lax in our spiritual formation, we begin
to harbor sin deep in our hearts. We begin to quiet the voice of God, listening
instead to the selfish desires of our heart that often speak loudly. Having
moved away from the living water, we systematically attempt to remove ourselves
from situations in which those that splash around in the living water hang out.
We don’t want their voices speaking into our self-justifying actions.
7.) What assumed failure on God’s part has given me reason to
take back control of my life and forge my own path?
When we feel let down by God, we often tell ourselves we
can do a better job. Without an intimacy of trust in the midst of difficult situations,
we will take charge. Those tendencies for control will lead us down paths of
self-determination and toward a hardness of heart.
8.) Have I chosen a path of least resistance when faithfulness
might have demanded that I stay in the fray and work hard to prevail in this
challenge?
When I begin looking for the easy way out, I tend to find
that as an alert to my spiritual bankruptcy. The world invites us to live a life
on a “path of least resistance.” “It should be easy.” We are told. However, a life
shaped by grace and strengthened by God stands in the fray and works in
conjunction with the Spirit of God to prevail in the challenges we face.
9.) Am I prone to believe that everyone around me needs to
change?
When spiritual formation takes a back seat in our lives,
we become increasingly self-deceptive.
We begin to tell ourselves that we are in the right and everyone else is
in the wrong. We tell ourselves that if everyone else changes, all would be
well. Self-deception is often the set up for our own undoing. Humble confession, fostered in a spirit of
prayer, trusts God to reveal to us our place in our conflict and chaos.
10.) Have I replaced my cross with my banner?
The journey of Jesus is one of sacrifice and self-giving
holy love. It is a life lived, giving itself away for the sake of others, on
behalf of the Kingdom of God. It’s the
way of the cross. However, inattention
to our spiritual formation will mean we lay down our cross and pick up our
selfish banners, making life about me, mine, and getting what I deserve. When I
pick up my banner, I’ve stopped following Jesus.
How’s your pulse?
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