Embracing Change: Discovering and Nurturing Our Strengths

a remarkable thing is going to happen today you a human being a moral agent accountable before a God you are going to change could be for the better I sure hope it is could be a little could be quite a lot could be with God's help not just your own effort but by the time you go to bed tonight you and I are going to be one day different than we were when we got started so let's ask God for help let's see what might happen today because one thing I know for sure you will never get this day again and neither will I change starts today [00:25:15]

now as we look at change and character and virtue we have to be wide open to what our weaknesses are what my flaws are how do I examine my sin but I can't get stuck there I was hearing uh from Nancy about somebody who knows me pretty well who had something pretty negative to say about the way I had navigated a pretty important uh journey in life and they may well be right they may well see things inside me that I don't I need to be very open and non-defensive and I can tell from the way that my mind works the way I would like to defend myself even right now as I think about this that I have a lot of growing to do and a long ways to go but I also know that if I live simply dwelling on what is negative about me there is not a force strong enough to pull me to what is good [00:87:11]

and so he convened 55 of the top psychologists in the world and they spent several years studying what are those character qualities or virtues or moral strengths that have been looked up to admired across all times in all places they looked across Christian across religions so whether you're Christian Islam Jewish Hindu Confucianism and so uh secular Greek philosophy they looked for traits that were ubiquitous and had folks that would go to the Messiah tribe in Kenya or uh to Inuits in Iceland and ask do these make sense to you and they found uh what they ultimately identified as 24 character strengths and if you take that survey we sent out a link you can see where you grade out on all of those which are strongest [00:200:15]

creativity curiosity judgment love of learning perspective is that you bravery perseverance honesty zest love kindness social intelligence teamwork fairness leadership forgiveness humility prudence self-regulation appreciation of beauty and excellence gratitude hope humor spirituality now if while I read that list of 24 traits you find yourself saying that's me after every single one of them probably humility is not going to be at the top of the list but taking the survey if you want to do it or just simply going through that list and doing a little self-assessment maybe asking one or two people in your life is a very important intervention in looking at how God has created you [00:295:08]

another way of going after this is which one of those traits What word what quality if it was absent from your life if you were not given the opportunity to exercise it would make you feel like I can't really be me and this deep commitment to character and character formation has been a part of human beings at its best although in our day we tend to focus much more on personality or temperaments or abilities or talents [00:368:45]

he says speed I must regain confidence and my ability to keep my resolves once they are made in that ability you know I once prided myself as the only or chief Gem of my character that gem I lost how and when you know too well I have not yet regained it and until I do I cannot trust myself in my matter of much importance Lincoln was mostly focused not on his temperament not on his personality not on his charms not on his talents on his character and he regarded this as the gem of his character his ability to keep resolves once he made them [00:420:15]

what's the gem of your character I don't mean this in a self-congratulatory I get to Pat myself on the back way how has God created you with his unique thumbprint so that when you are exercising this character quality this strength you are most you I think if my friend Rick Langley worked for Rick many many years uh at Menlo Church and Rick was a remarkably humble person often when people are engaged in leadership you'll hear folks say you know if you want to have smart people you got to be a 10 in smartness and then you get eight or nines or sevens and smart to follow you or so on the thing about Rick was he lived and worked and served out of his humility and because humility his humility was so great and so deep and people trusted it so much then folks who are unbelievably smarter unbelievably high functioning in other ways would want to be on Rick's team purely because of his character [00:520:08]

I think of my friend Gary moon and the gift of humor that character strength I can think of times being in supervision with Gary where we would be laughing so hard we would be rolling on the floor crying Gary when he's with a group of people if there's tension or boredom or stagnation or something he will say something really funny and he will get all red in his face and he'll scan everybody and if everybody doesn't laugh immediately he will just apologize and change the subject but if they do he will laugh until he cries [00:575:56]

the question today is what's that word that you most resonate with that is a a character strength a good quality that God has placed in you that when you are at your best you use and how can you use it in different contexts maybe you're quite disciplined and you exercise that at school or at work but you haven't really been practicing that at home or maybe you have quite a lot of compassion and you use that at home but you're not using that in the workplace what is that character quality that God has placed in you that God wants to bring out more and more and more [00:606:07]

so carry that one word with you today look for it ask God to clarify it for you give you chances to exercise it and then we'll begin to look at how do we cultivate each of these qualities in our lives change starts today [00:646:30]