From the Pastor’s Heart OP-ED BY DR. ROBERT KENNEDY
As we bid our farewell to 2020, it is crucial that we take time to ask ourselves several questions that can give us a sense of where we have been and where we need to go. For precise and close examination, let us place significant questions on a list, with subsidiary questions.
1. What have we done with the time that has been allotted to us?
· How did we treat the months, the weeks, the days, the hours, the minutes of the year?
· Did we waste time away?
· Did we sleep when we should have been working?
· Did we work when we should have been resting?
2. What have we done with the relationships that we have been permitted to have?
· How have we treated our family members, our spouses, our children, our extended family?
· What did we do with our friendships this year?
· How did we reach out to them? Or have we reached out to them at all?
3. What did we do with the resources that God gave to us during the year?
· Did we use our resources wisely?
· Did we budget?
· Did we squander?
· Did we hoard?
· Did we share?
· Did we bless others?
· Did we boast about what God has given to us?
· Were we thankful or what?
4. What did we do with our health this year?
· Did we protect our health?
· Did we eat wisely?
· Did we rest when needed?
· Did we exercise?
· Did we______________________?
· Did we____________________?
5. What did we do with the talents and gifts that God has given to us this year?
· How well did we improve ourselves?
· Did we write down something in a journal?
· Did we paint a picture? Did we learn a new language?
· Did we____________?
· Did we __________________?
· Did we______________?
The questions and follow-ups above are just start-ups for the kind of self-examination that we need to do. If you are like me, you have gone to your doctors this year for your annual exam. They checked your eyes, your ears, your throat, your heart, your lungs and did your blood work. They have given you “a thorough overhaul,” as some like to say. If you have been in school during the year, I do not have to explain that you have faced examinations and quizzes. Your teachers want to know what you have learned. Instead of calling what you have taken an examination, they might call it assessment, evaluation or valuation – all the same- with variations of intensity. All these approaches demonstrate how well or how poorly you have done.
My greatest interest is to have us do some self-examination on where we have been with our God over the last year. This examination is crucial because there are aspects of our lives and circumstances over which we have total control and are accountable to God. Since we will have to answer, ultimately to God, there is a need for such self-examination.
I am basing my call on the apostle Paul’s thoughts to the Corinthians, where he asked them to look at their behaviors and practices in their relationships within their God. He wanted them to examine or prove themselves to know whether they were in alignment with God’s mind and will. Check themselves, as it were, to ensure that they were walking worthy of the divine calling. Here is how his instructions were phrased:
“Examine yourselves as to whether you are in the faith.” 2 Corinthians 13:5 (KJV)
“But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For he who eats and drinks in an unworthy manner eats and drinks judgment to himself, not discerning the Lord’s body. For this reason, many are weak and sick among you, and many sleep.” 1 Corinthians 11:28-30 (KJV)
The instructions given are very significant. Allow me to outline what is being suggested in three points, as follows:
1. Examine yourselves
People who fail to examine themselves never know who they are.
People who fail to look at themselves in a mirror will go out with a dirty face.
2. See whether you are in the faith are not.
People who never examine their faith, spirituality, or spirituality are on shallow ground.
People who never examine their faith will never know whether their faith has been weakened or strengthened.
3. Failure to examine oneself leaves one open to the judgment (or condemnation) of others.
You can fool yourself, but you can’t fool everyone.
Greatest of all, you cannot fool God.
Here are we – we need to take some time to look at where we have been and where we are going. We need to take a look at our motives, actions, hearts, consciences, and spirits. In fact, as deceptive as we are, we need to ask the Lord to help us through the self-examination. While Socrates said, “Know thyself.” David said, “Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me and know my thoughts: And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.” (Psalm 139:23-24 KJV).
Both recognized the significance of knowing the self, but while the one offered a looking to oneself, the other offered the best way to self-knowledge by looking to God, the heart searcher. (cf. Romans 8:27; Jeremiah 17:9, 10; 1 Samuel 16:7).
The point is that we need to consistently take time to do some examination as to where we have been and where we need to go. We need to acknowledge what and where we have seen weakness and sure up for the days ahead.
We must do as is done at our doctors’ offices. We are to do as our mechanics do when we take our cars to them for service. We are to be like the engineers who examine our roads, cables on our bridges, or our insurance agents, so we can know what next to do.
We must do the self-examination. Examine ourselves this and every moment we have in this life. Take time to do it. It is worth it.
