Dec
Pausing To Look Backwards
Let’s be honest. Very few of us can open up our old yearbooks and be proud of the way we looked back in the day. The reality is we attempt to keep this piece of memorabilia under lock and key. No one in their right mind shares this book with friends. Our worst nightmare is someone stumbling upon our senior portrait and laughing uncontrollably at our hair cut or lack of fashion sense.
As goofy as getting all nostalgic with your yearbook seems, there is some good that can come as a result of reflecting on where you’ve been. This is true even in our spiritual transformation. In most Christian circles, so much energy is spent talking about progressing in our walks with God. The focus is on developing, moving forward and creating momentum. Yet, I’m beginning to see how the only way to move forward is by pausing to look backwards.
Over this past year, you’ve found yourself on a journey towards reflecting Christ’s heart in a certain aspect of your life. Through focusing on your one word, you’ve taken steps towards a deeper intimacy with God. With 2011 right around the corner, the time has come to begin to switch gears. If it is true that your next word will spring out of where you left off from your first, we must take some time to map out some possibilities for your new word.
We want to encourage you to use the rest of December to journal about aspects of your character where you feel transformation needs to occur. In order to get this process moving, we’ve provided the following questions:
- If you could redo one aspect of your One Word, what would it be and why?
- What gaps did you witness in your character as a result of working on your One Word?
- In what ways did God use this experience to shape you in ways you weren’t expecting?
- How is your current word going to influence the next word you choose?
this post was written by:
Tony Ripa who has written 83 POSTS on myoneword.org