Are you becoming like your parents? You may not notice this when you are young, but as you age you may notice yourself taking on their mannerisms and habits. I tell you to honor your father and mother and imitation is one sincere form of this. You may admire your parents and do this intentionally, or you may not and seek to avoid it, but it will happen either way. You are deeply influenced by them whether you realize it or not, or appreciate it or not. What about your Father in heaven? Are you intentionally taking on his mannerisms and character? You are made in his image.

Do you have control issues? Is this something that is easier to see in other people than it is in yourself? How great is your sense that you are not capable of directing your own life, that you need assistance from outside yourself, that you are being led? The short answer to these questions is that if you are in control of your life I am not. Do you think of progress in terms of seizing and advancing in a structured planned process that you direct? Are you willing to view progress in terms of letting go and surrendering?

Have you been through a faith crisis or transition? Do you expect to go through one? When people are fully invested in their current practice of faith do they ever expect it to change? Yet often it does. If you have been through one yourself how do you know you will not go through another? Consider those who seem most spiritually mature to you, or whom you most admire. Have they gone through shifts or transitions, or is their faith practice essentially unchanged from the first?

Do you remember the story of the man with two sons, and he told them both to work in his vineyard? One said he would, but did not, and the other said he would not, but did. Which one did the will of his father? Do you know people who say that I exist and claim to believe in me, but live as if I did not? On the other hand, do you know people who claim I do not exist, but behave as if I did? You know that you are saved by grace through faith, not by works. Having said that, do not be eager to dismiss those whose life and conduct conforms to the law of love regardless of what they profess.