The word ‘listen’ means both to hear and obey. Learning to discern God’s voice from amongst the myriad sounds that surround us today is challenging. Of course listening is not simply through our ears. What we observe we may choose to copy, realising we have listened to a pattern for life. What we read we may take as our truth and so choose to disregard alternative perspectives.

There are two ways to look at our life experience. The one is to see things as happening to us, the other is to take ownership of them and then navigate our way through them. We can identify them as either threats or opportunities. Scripture encourages us to take hold of all our experiences and treat them as an opportunity.

Confidence is complete trust. We think about confidence in God (Jer. 17:7–8), but it’s more challenging to place full confidence in ourselves. Jeremiah reminds us that confidence provides the roots to sustain us through uncertain seasons. Most often we act as our own harshest critic. God loves us despite knowing everything about us, but we never disillusion Him because He never had any illusions to start with.

Training as a mediator I was reminded that I had two ears, but only one mouth; the moral being, listen twice as much as you speak. Good advice, but like many I have an opinion on everything and this remains a challenge. A study of Jesus’ ministry reveals He asked many questions, and listened carefully to peoples’ answers.

Perseverance acts as a prime motivator driving us both to attain our defined goals and to improve our skills. This drive is sustained by the passion we have for our goals and helps us to persist in our efforts, despite opposition and obstacles. It draws upon our motivation – how much we want something, and our determination, what we’re prepared to spend on being successful.

One reason for bad decisions is the fact that we are often driven by our emotions. Someone once said, ‘When angry we make the best speech we’ll ever regret!’ All of us can identify with the fiery and emotional speech we have made before spinning on our heels, leaving the room and slamming the door behind us.

Maturity means developing our ability to make good choices. In our daily discipleship, we must beware of those factors that can slow, impede, even derail our commitment to God. This is not to raise our anxiety levels, for Paul makes it clear that we can draw reasonable assumptions from daily observations.

Waverley Abbey is built on Jesus’ summary of the Law and the Prophets, teaching us to see everyone through Jesus’ eyes. There’s no demand for anyone learning with us to have a faith- based approach to life. Only that they recognise our understanding grows from an ancient world view, evident throughout Scripture, offering a realistic and comprehensive understanding of who we are, why we’re here, what’s wrong with the world, and how this can be addressed.

A precept is a principle or rule, something that guarantees an outcome or a state of being. God’s precepts offer us refreshment, confidence, wisdom, truth, joy, vision, clarity all of which outlast time itself and ensure that we reflect God’s virtue, or so the psalmist declares!

It’s clear that Christian life is demanding, and we do well to avoid accepting Jesus’ call casually. Choosing Jesus is to subscribe to a worldview encompassing every aspect of reality, with helpful guidance on how best to select our own activities.