A couple of times a month I am able to sit back in my wonderfully comfortable office chair and read through the most recent couple of issues of Christianity Today and World Magazine. Keeping abreast of the ‘goings-on’ of the church in our day is an important albeit time-consuming part of a pastor’s work.
In the February 16 edition of World Magazine, I read something that caught my attention in the ‘Mailbag’ section – the place where reader’s comments and feedback on the previous issue are printed. One of the selected correspondents wrote to the editors of the magazine in reference to the magazine’s obituary column for people we lost in 2018. Here is their comment:
“Perusing this list makes me wonder what they would write about my life. What are my priorities, values, and loves, and does my life reflect them?”
I have both read and heard similar sentiments before and there is something about such thoughts that troubles me. Let me state why I am troubled by such thoughts in the form of a thesis: Your life always reflects your priorities, values, and loves. Always.
When we wonder whether or not our life reflects our values, we are in one sense looking at the challenge of living from the wrong direction. It would be better to ask ourselves the question “What does my life reveal about what my priorities, values, and loves really are.”
All of us, to some extent or another, know the correct answers when it comes to what we should value and love: things like humility, honesty, our spouses, missions and evangelism, worship, the Washington Redskins, etc…. And we tend to credit our awareness of what we ought to love as if that awareness alone constituted an actual love of that object or activity.
Take fishing for example. I can say that I love fishing. There was a time in my life when I used to go fishing several times a week. In my office I have some fishing-themed artifacts that demonstrate an interest in the pursuit. But I actually go fishing only when I am in Minnesota at the Bjerkaas family reunion every other July. In almost twelve years of living in California, I have been fishing three times. Looking at how I actually live my life, it appears to be the case that my priorities, values, and loves no longer privilege fishing – over almost anything at all! My priorities, values, and loves have changed – and the ‘mirror’ of my day timer and checkbook make that clear.
For a different kind of example, take evangelism. Most Christians would unreservedly express a conviction that they value, love, and prioritize evangelism. But! Our lives all too often tell a different story.
With respect to all of our loves and values, we need to be careful to allow the facts of our life actually lived to reveal to us what our priorities, affections, and attitudes actually are! When Jesus told the Pharisees that it is from the “overflow of our hearts that our mouths speak” he lays down a principle: our inner condition is demonstrated by what comes out of us. And this is a HUGE help to us. Because only when we realize that we need to do the hard work of changing from the inside out will we grow.
If I delude myself into thinking that my priorities, loves, and values are all proper but that I just can’t do x,y,or z, I will probably never actually do x,y, or z. But if based upon my actual life I conclude that I need to change my priorities, repent of poorly ordered affections, and realign my values, then I just might see some change.
Your Pastor,
Bob Bjerkaas
N.B. The picture of a man startled by his reflection is an illustration from the book Samantha at the World’s Fair by Marietta Holley (Funk & Wagnalls Company, 1893). The illustrator was Baron C. De Grimm. Thanks to the website Related