Sabbatical...one year later...

Next week, it will be one year since the Skor Family finished up our Sabbatical time away. My good friend is currently finishing up his much needed Sabbatical time as well.

Those two connected thoughts have caused me to ask myself, now one year removed, what the Holy Spirit has taught me through our Sabbatical experience, which is now viewed through the lens of a year "back in the saddle."

So here are 10 "learnings", worth something to me, but probably not much to you:

1. Health and Faithfulness are far more important to me that whether I'm perceived as successful ~ Life and circumstances may never allow us to be "healthy" in this sin-filled world, but I can still make right choices to be as healthy (spiritually, physically, emotionally) and as faithful to my God, as possible. I've watched far too many who are addicted, dysfunctional and driven by wrong things burn out and crash. As far as it depends on me, I do not want that.
2. Listening is far more important that Speaking ~ Whether it's in a conversation with people around me or in my relationship with God, this is just simply True.
3. Investing in Relationships is far more important than, well, most anything else.
4. If I cannot disconnect my esteem from "what I do," my heart is in danger ~ I am in danger when I allow myself to be influenced by those who are caught in this dysfunction as well and may need to remove myself, for a time, from that relationship.
5. If I cannot give up my need to be needed, or involved, my heart is in danger ~ I'm also convinced that this is, if not sin, bordering on it.
6. My worth, purpose and affirmation come from my relationship with my God.
7. I am called to lead, and I am gifted accordingly ~ regardless of what some who have selfish interests may have tried to say to me.
8. I choose to believe in people and speak into their lives rather than criticize them and leave them in my wake.
9. The Church is about to undergo a major reformation and paradigm shift in order to reach our current culture ~ I am called to be part of that change.
10. God has broken my heart more than ever before for people who don't know what it means to have a relationship with Jesus my friend, savior and leader.