Values: The beliefs, principles, and philosophies that we hold about life, its 
purpose, and our own purpose.
Last Monday the Ministry Team at NewPointe got away for a day of reflection and planning. One of the exercises we were asked to complete was about values. Specifically, we were asked to take some time to consider, reflect upon, and write down our top five values and what each of those mean to us. Here are the five I finally landed on:
- Family: the primary people I’m responsible to lead, love, and provide for. They are the ones who consume my thoughts and my affection.
- Faith: Complete trust and confidence in God—that He is who He says He is and that He can do ANYTHING!
- Trust: A strong desire to be found trustworthy by others. I also highly value being able to trust others.
- Creativity: Thinking differently and expressing it. Favorite question: What if? Making an impact through the arts and creative solutions.
- Love: Love wins, right? There’s nothing that’s really more powerful or important in life. If I have everything else but don’t have this one, it’s all meaningless.
I also made a list of values that get honorable mention (so hard to limit your list to only five): Fun, Variety, Winning, Excellence, Integrity.
What did I learn from this exercise? I learned that what I say my top five values are aren’t always reflected in how I live my life. I think our TRUE values are reflected in how we spend our time and our money. For example, I can say one of my primary values is my family, but how much of my time and energy are they really getting? When I start analyzing how I spend my time and my thoughts, sometimes, I’m afraid, my top values may look something like this:
- Sports
- Television
- Laziness
- iPhone
- Food
I did some soul-searching and had a talk with God about the difference between what I say my values are and what the way I live my life says my values are.
How about you? Do what you say you value align with how you live?
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