Does Our Living Reflect Our Faith Values? – Still More On “The Centered Life”

My current adult Sunday School class on The Centered Life continues to stimulate thought and motivate changes in the way I live. In a recent post I marveled how that it is God’s grace that frees us to live out our vocation (the Christian life).

Last Sunday our class broke up into small groups and we did some self examination. We made a list on the left side of the paper of five of what we considered to be our (faith based) values (e.g., family, devotion to God, kindness, service to others, etc.). Then on the right side of the sheet we listed the ways in which we spent our time, daily and weekly.

The point was to ask ourselves if someone else read the list, would they conclude that we lived according to our stated values? Try it sometime. It’s a revealing exercise.

Chris Bellefeuille, pastor of a large Minnesota Lutheran church observes the following:

“If you think of every moment of your life as a moment of discipleship, it can be a bit overwhelming. But every moment of your life is an opportunity for discipleship. God has given each of us many great gifts: time, money/material things, relationships and our particular talents. As Christian people, we use all of these gifts to live out our values in the world.

He continues, “Think of discipleship as minute-by-minute stewardship of these gifts: how are they being spent, to what purpose are they being directed?” (Bold mine)

This is the challenge I’ve been pondering so far this week.

Parker Palmer, a Quaker educator and personal friend of The Centered Life author Jack Fortin, has written a helpful book titled, Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation. He describes how we can look inward to reflect on our own life experience and listen for the inner voice that reveals our various callings. In it he states, “That insight is hidden in the word 'vocation' itself, which is rooted in the Latin for ‘voice.’ Vocation does not mean a goal that I pursue. It means a calling that I hear.”

May my eyes and ears be open, moment by moment, to living in God’s grace.