I’m better at learning things fast—as if beginner to expert overnight is a goal worth pursuing. But the things that take grueling-slow learning and moment-by-moment surrender, those are the harder lessons to learn. The ones most worth learning.

Links mentioned:

1. It’s not too late to join the #ReflectJesus challenge! Grab the challenge prompts HERE and I’ll pop into your inbox the rest of the month with daily prayers to help you and I reflect Jesus like a mirror.

2. To get a short, doable tip in your inbox every week to help you get to know your neighbors, sign up here.

3. Read the written version of this episode HERE.

We give self-talk its own category and unreined license to belittle and badger. Under labels like inner critic, perfectionism, and people-pleasing, these self-directed lies appear safe.

But maybe we’ve normalized lying to ourselves about who we are and what we’re worth. Perhaps we’ve underestimated the impact of repeating self-condemnation and sharp comparisons, of setting inhuman standards of perfection, of marking our success (or lack of) with effort and efficiency rather than character and surrender.

And we feel scarceness, smallness, purposelessness, and discontentment in place of actual happiness.

Links mentioned:

1. It’s not too late to join the #ReflectJesus challenge! Grab the challenge prompts HERE and I’ll pop into your inbox the rest of the month with daily prayers to help you and I reflect Jesus like a mirror.

2. To get a short, doable tip in your inbox every week to help you get to know your neighbors, sign up here.

3. Read the written version of this episode HERE.

Set out to reflect Jesus like a mirror and you come face-to-face with your list of what you lack. Your squabbles and squeamish fears, your flat-out insecurity and sneaky pride. The features you’d change. The less-thans and not-likes and labels confirming your unworth.

Links mentioned:

1. It’s not too late to join the #ReflectJesus challenge! Grab the challenge prompts HERE and I’ll pop into your inbox the rest of the month with daily prayers to help you and I reflect Jesus like a mirror.

2. To get a short, doable tip in your inbox every week to help you get to know your neighbors, sign up here.

3. Read the written version of this episode HERE.

I find what works on a mountain also applies to our relationships with our Enneagram opposites and how we approach an election.

Links mentioned:

1. Discover your Enneagram number and how it helps you love your neighbors well HERE.
2. To get a short, doable tip in your inbox every week to help you get to know your neighbors, sign up here.
3. Read the written version of this episode HERE.

David finds himself in a spot many of us do today, sandwiched between the ugly and awful repercussions of a severed relationship with God and the invitation to find oasis in the here-and-now as we wait for full glory.

Links mentioned:

1. Check out Begin Within: A Gratitude Series. Get the weekly story in your inbox to cultivate year-round, ripple-effect gratitude!
2. Take the #ReflectJesus gratitude challenge!
3. To get a short, doable tip in your inbox every week to help you get to know your neighbors, sign up here.
4. Read the written version of this episode HERE.

With-ness. Could there be a word that sits closer to the tender heart of God? It strikes me while praying for North Carolina, Chaing Mai, and Florida how God’s promise to join us as we gather in His name (Matthew 18:20) reveals His desire 1) to be with us and 2) for us to be together.

Links mentioned:

1. To get a short, doable tip in your inbox every week to help you get to know your neighbors, sign up here.

2. Read the written version of this episode HERE.

3. Samaritan’s Purse (choose hurricane relief, any other specific need, or simply where it’s most needed).

4. Health and Hunger Coalition (located in Boone, NC and providing hard-to-reach neighbors with food).

5. Within Reach Global (bringing compassion and the gospel to Chaing Mai, Thailand).

A reflection is a mirror image. It captures the slightest tilt of the head, a shift in posture, merriment in the eye, or sorrow squeezing eyebrows together. It’s not static, but fluid, transcribing in real-time every stray hair and sigh, every question etched in a facial expression. The fullness of emotion, the details of dress, the way we slump or stand tall–a mirror will tell it truthful.

If we’re to mirror Jesus back to a hurting world, we’ve got to fall in sync with His breath, His heartbeat, His tears and tender expressions. We’ve got to memorize the features of His face, the veins in His nail-scarred hands, and the inflections of His voice.

Links mentioned:

1. I can’t say enough good things about Jennifer Dukes Lee’s guided journal, Stuff I’d Only Tell God.

2. Read more on Matthew 5:7 HERE.

3. Check out my dear friend Jennifer Sakata’s newly released podcast, Living the Grace Life.

4. To get a short, doable tip in your inbox every week to help you get to know your neighbors, sign up here.

5. Read the written version of this episode HERE.

What if I were a bit more like her? Noticed details and demeanor, presence and absence? Gave others a glimpse of how we each matter to God?

Links mentioned:

1. Discover your Enneagram number, what we love about you, how your Enneagram strengths help you love your neighbors well, and how to best love your neighbors with different numbers HERE!

2. Around the Clock Mom by Sarah Butterfield.

3. To get a short, doable tip in your inbox every week to help you get to know your neighbors, sign up here.

4. Read the written version of this episode HERE.