We claim a multitude of values, allegiances, and priorities.
There are certain topics / issues where we go out of our way to ensure everyone can clearly understand our position. While there are other areas where we remain intentionally opaque so as to avoid conflict or judgement. In all, we want our values, and relative transparency of them, to paint a picture of what we consider right living.
However, statements of value only go so far. Their reality is evidenced in our decision-making and actions. For action articulates where our true loyalties fall and effectively charts our adherence to, or violation of, our claimed values.
“The word has gotten around. Your lives are echoing the Master’s Word, not only in the provinces but all over the place. The news of your faith in God is out. We don’t even have to say anything anymore—you’re the message!”
We worry so much about what we should say, post, or comment on. We carefully weigh and edit each word or picture, and even manage the periodicity of our responses, when the truth is that aspect of our lives is marginal at best. For we pay attention to people’s words, but our judgement of them is rooted in, and constantly readdressed by, their actions. Like the verse above points out, our lives themselves are the message, not our words.
Which brings us to our question today: where does your life point to? If we were to study the full body of your decision making history, what would we conclude about you? We must be self-reflective and assess if we are living in a manner worthy of emulating, or just cropping our lives in an effort to artificially manage perception. It is time we abandon our elaborate use of ‘filters’ and focus our efforts instead on truly living right. For we have only been deceiving ourselves.