Every year, on my birthday, I try to take inventory of any potential wisdom I could have gained throughout my life. Wisdom doesn't come very naturally for me, so this took some time. But these are the 28 things that are governing my life right now. Maybe they can be of some help to you as well.
28. Wisdom calls us to engage people who are different from us with curiosity, which requires openness, a willingness to listen, and draws us closer together. Fear calls us to look at people different from us with suspicion, which makes us closed-off, unwilling to engage, and divides us. Wisdom is always better than fear.
27. No political party has a monopoly on Jesus. The chances are if anyone tells you their party is Gods party they have traded allegiance to Jesus with allegiance to empire (you know, the thing that killed Him.)
26. The most important relationships will experience the most pain, because we are always fighting against our selfishness and for our connection to each other.
25. Be connected to the moment, to the here and now. God must be a big fan of today because we keep waking up to it.
24. If the thought, attitude, behavior, or theology doesn’t reflect Jesus it isn’t Christian, no matter how many Bible verses you have to back it up.
23. God is rescuing the world, and God will not be stopped, hindered, or slowed down; and we get to join God if we'd like.
22. Cynics are wounded optimists. It’s worth it to confront your cynicism and trade it for optimism.
21. All I will say I know about God for certain (as certain as one can be about matters of faith) is that he is infinitely loving and infinitely mysterious
20. My family and friends make me a rich person.
19. Being quick to dislike someone or count them out is a tragic way to live.
18. People who disagree with you are not dumb. They hold their values for a reason, and usually you can learn from their reasoning.
17. There are rarely easy solutions, only people who are willing to engage in life’s complexities and people who aren’t.
16. Anyone who tells you they don’t like music is almost certainly a sociopath and should be looked at with suspicion.
15. God is like Jesus. God has always been like Jesus. There has never been a time where God was not like Jesus. We haven’t always known this, but now we do.
14. Don’t hold on tightly to a friend who wants to leave. If you allow freedom for someone to walk away, you allow even more freedom for them to come back.
13. Don't get caught up doing more for God than your inner life with God can sustain. Prioritize living as a human being before the Creator rather than a human doing.
12. The Enneagram is scary.
11. Don’t give up on your dreams. They matter.
10. The church is imperfect but is worth fighting for. (As St. Francis said: The church is a whore, but she is my mother.)
9. God is aware of your gifts, he gave them to you. So, if you aren’t in a position to use them, as horrible as it sounds, be patient, he can’t wait to unleash you (when you’re ready).
8. No matter how bad things get there is still time to be surprised.
7. We rarely see things as they are, we see things as we are.
6. Being able to handle cognitive dissonance is fundamental to being a gracious and understanding person.
5. In lieu of #6, the other side of doubt doesn’t have to be unbelief. Doubt can lead to greater faith. Doubt and faith can co-exist, and if you’re experiencing doubt you could be on the verge of a Divine breakthrough.
4. This Jesus thing is real, and it’s worth devoting your life to.
3. Every day spent being Kelsey's husband is a day I am walking in God’s abundance.
2. The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand. We can and should be advocating for its earthly presence all the time.
1. The infinite love of God is constantly being poured out for humanity if we have eyes to see and ears to hear.
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