Whenever you feel lost and unsure of how to start up again, go back to the basics.
“So don’t lose a minute in building on what you’ve been given, complementing your basic faith with good character,spiritual understanding,alert discipline,passionate patience,reverent wonder,warm friendliness, and generous love, each dimension fitting into and developing the others.”
2 Peter 1:5-9 MSG
Basic Faith – the first step, the first throwing of oneself upon the mercy of God and walking forward into the unseen with the belief that you are not alone to develop.
Good Character – follow the way of Jesus in the little things and the big things.
Spiritual Understanding – the moments you can’t explain, but know are true.
Alert Discipline – not allowing time, tiredness, busyness, past baggage, or old excuses erode right habits, receiving grace and energy from God.
Passionate Patience – being able to expectantly wait for one thing while wholeheartedly working for another. Choosing to focus on being obedient, not on the results of being obedient.
Reverent Wonder – the awe of seeing God with the wide eyes of a trusting child.
Warm Friendliness – the smile, the hug, the gentle knowing atmosphere of those who are confidently walking in their purpose of living loved by God.
Generous Love – being able to love those closest to you without fear or conditional embraces. Also, the ability to love those you barely know with an authenticity that only comes from intimately knowing God.
These are my own definitions of the list in 2 Peter 1:5.
These are not a to-do list, this is a Jesus-help-me-be list.
May you find your way back to the basics and thrive by the grace of God in each one today.
