I have, over the last 3 or 4 months been considering my values. My personal values, family values, values as a Christian and as a church leader. I discovered that I can reel off my values no problem and I know them but do others? I wonder if other people can know what my values are not because I tell them, but because they are evident in the way I live my life.
By way of a personal challenge I decided to analyse my diary because I thought it would reveal what I really valued … and it did! WHAT I SAW WAS NOT PRETTY!
I may say I value marriage, and time with my wife but were you to look at my diary you would not see that value reflected quite as strongly. I say I value being a Dad and having family meal times but you would not see that from my diary. I may say that I value being a Christian and sharing my faith but rarely would my diary show you anything to reflect those values by time given to personal evangelism! What you would see is work, work, work … raising leaders, preparing sermons but not so much of the other things I say I value! Obviously things needed to change and I have started to take an axe to my schedule and make time for the things I really value.
It is worth you taking some time out too because no one else is fooled by you talking a good game yet doing something else! I read today an article in the Guardian about why people of faith criticise governments and many other things, but seem to refuse to criticise each other. Whilst it was interesting what really caught my eye was this …
The more depressing truth seems to be that for all their aspirations for transcendent truth and higher purpose, religions behave like any other worldly individual or organisation and end up doing what protects their secular interests, not what most aligns with their values. (Julian Baggini at guardian.co.uk)
How is it this journalist can see that what we say are our values is not what we do … what we do is something quite different. He suggests that it is deliberate in order to further the secular cause, but I believe it is for politeness (as the reporter suggests in his article) but more realistically because their effort is being put into other things, distracting things, that are diverting them from their primary cause, their key values and sole mission.
What is you primary cause? What are you key values and what is your mission? Are you doing them? Are they reflected in your diary? Can others identify them through your actions and life or are they all principles you hold, but not life up to?
Worth a thought!
Hi Andy..
I think diaries are only part of the story aren’t they. – I don’t diarise any time to eat, yet I make time for it every single day! – Indeed, if my diary did have ‘eat’ in it, some would think I had some sort of disorder (and I think that’s the same with our families)
The reality is that we put things in our diary that we have to ‘do’. it has very little with who we ‘be’.
I think the point Rob is that if we fill our diary with things we feel we “have to do” then those things often end up pushing out the things we should do. The urgent will always try to push out the important. My point then is that over time we can find that the things we value, the important things, get pushed out and then my life gets full of things that appear on the surface to be “Must Do” things but are not often really that important and the important things, like time with family etc get pushed out. I think we need to take time to re-evaluate what we say is important and compare it to what we are actually doing. No point in saying I value my wife if, in practice, I never spend any time with her! Same with my kids, same with looking to share the gospel with unbelievers. I need to be doing some of this stuff … not just talking about it!