Show notes
What do you do without having to think about it? That is, what sort of behaviors, responses, habits, thoughts, or words flow naturally in and through your life without you having to consciously consider them? The way we answer that question leads us straight down into a foundational part of our humanity: our character. It’s the thing we don’t have to decide about because it’s already formed within us. It’s the identity that ignites the rest of who we are and how we live. Character is, as the Greek philosopher Heraclites once put it, our fate: the person we ultimately become, through the joys and griefs of our lives, always begins and ends with the forging of our inner beings. The scriptures, and Jesus Himself, have always articulated this to us, writing of a God who “looks on the heart” (1 Samuel Listen as Tom Parker preaches on 1 Samuel 25, exploring how the story teaches us about the centrality of listening to wise counsel.