As others have stated, these values are slippery, both in stating the definitive list and in living them out with the fullness we intend to. Here are some thoughts about the things I believe to be true that shape my actions and reactions. I have listed them as queries to ask myself.

1. Am I moving towards or away from relationship?: Just about anything with a lasting impact, anything good that happens with humans seems to center around relationships. Depth of relationship brings trust, vulnerability, honesty, confession, correction, deeper belonging. Its in this framework that I am transformed, called, and corrected. Deep relationships can probably only be found with a few others in our lives but I value trying to put myself in a position to know people better and better so that I might walk alongside them. I do wonder if that value is easier to consider as an extrovert.

2. Do I embrace that my purpose as a follower of Christ is to accept and live into the invitation to join with God in God’s Mission of reconciling all of creation to God’s self? To become an ambassador of reconciliation is such a high calling and yet so fraught with the peril of my selfishness and lack of patience. If I am going to be the ambassador of something, I have to know that thing well. I have to know and be known by God so that I am true to the mission otherwise mission-creep can send me on a path full of potentially good things but maybe not the right things.

3. Do I choose Love above all?  Of course so much could be said here but my hope is to value “That of God” in each person, to call out the best, to give the benefit of the doubt.  When I was at a point of disagreement with my church in my beliefs about the place of LGBTQ folks in the church, I tried to experiment with what it would look like to error on the side of love.  Not to disregard righteousness or evil intentions and actions but to begin in a posture of love. While people say, “Correction can be a form of love” I find that my motive to correct or rebuke is almost always tied up in me. I am not very good at correcting with a pure heart.

4. Am I  increasingly showing up in ways that are Christ-like? This is another way to talk about maturity as Nina so aptly stated it.  It is easy to get stalled in my growth but like the door jam where everyones height is marked, when I pay attention, I can look back and recognize that I am making progress. I hope to get better at being obedient and not plateau in my my growth. Do others notice my maturing? Am I still wrestling with the same sin?  Transformation is process. This takes the pressure off of me to transform someone else.  It is God that does the transforming, is my maturing life a sign post to the one who transforms us?

5 Do I trust and act as if God is already there?  God does not show up on the scene just when I do.  If God is always looking to reconcile creation then God is already at work in any situation that I show up in.  This takes the focus off of my hoped for results and expectations and reminds me to begin to be curious about how/where God is at work.  So I have to ask how is God already present here?  It urges me to ask, “I wonder…” questions. What is God up to in my life and in the lives of others that I interact with, even in my enemy?