MHoggard_Lesson4_Desires_and_Values

[Margaret Hoggard]

Question 5. What are three to five core values that you identified in this lesson? How do these values reflect your personal convictions? How will you communicate them to others?

Using Fr. Dan’s suggestion, I went through the process of looking at a long list of Christian values. From there, I identified fifteen, and then, with some difficulty, narrowed them down to five core ones.

1. Love. This core value reflects to the greatest commandment: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these” (Mark 12:30-31, NIV). Admittedly, I often struggle to be loving – for instance, when the same telephone solicitor calls me for the fifth time within the same hour despite having been told each time I am on the “do not call” list. Nevertheless, obedience to this commandment is the primary value that motivates who I am and what I do in my life in Christ.

2. Faithfulness. While I have a deep faith in God, I sometimes get sidetracked from being faithful in my devotional life and my expression of my faith in service by worldly cares and distractions. Yet it is through faithfulness to these “rules” that I can also strengthen my observance of the first commandment. I find the passage from the Psalm 85:10-13 very moving because it speaks of the way in which God bestows His love through his faithfulness to us. “Steadfast love and faithfulness will meet; righteousness and peace will kiss each other. Faithfulness will spring up from the ground, and righteousness will look down from the sky. The LORD will give what is good, and our land will yield its increase. Righteousness will go before him, and will make a path for his steps” (NRSV). Love and faithfulness lead to righteousness, all of which guide us in our Christian walk.

3. Patient Forbearance: Patience/forbearance is one of the fruits of the Spirit listed in Galatians 5:22, and I believe that it is a core value that I need to exercise in order to avoid the distractions that sometimes keep me from being as faithful and loving as I am called to be. Increasingly, I have become aware that God’s love and faithfulness towards me, who is such a fallible human being, are gifts of grace that are manifested through his patient forbearance. I have absolute faith that He has never given up on me, even — or perhaps especially — when I have given up on myself. As I look ahead to crafting a rule of life to guide me in fulfilling His will, I pray for the strength, lovingkindness, and courage to practice this core value.

4 and 5. Enlightenment and Spiritual Growth: Daniel 5:14 connects “enlightenment, understanding, and excellent wisdom” to “a spirit of the gods within you.” As my growing sense of vocation centers on encouraging and supporting others in their spiritual development, I pray that Holy Spirit will enlighten me in discovering the path to spiritual growth, so I can offer some direction out of God’s “excellent wisdom” and not my own ego or limited understanding. I believe these two values are intricately connected: spiritual growth leads to enlightenment, but enlightenment under the guidance of the Spirit, also leads to further spiritual growth.

Upon reflection of these core values, I see that no matter how I exercise my Christian service, now and in the future, they will always serve as foundational in my relationship with God and with other people. As I look at other values that are important to me, I can see that they all have their roots in these five.

Blessings,
Maggie Hoggard

[jeffrbassett]

Maggie, these values all seem to lead to certain kind of vocation. I would be intrigued to discover what your secondary values are. I found it to be difficult to distinguish between my primary and secondary values simply because my experience tends to be of the “secondary” values. Not sure why that is.

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