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Five-Lesson Friday

posted Jan 1, 2016, 1:22 AM by Nathan Wheeler   [ updated Apr 11, 2018, 4:09 PM by Nathanael Wheeler ]
I've dabbled in the stock market for a few years. I haven't really made anything - I'm mostly break-even. Recently I started following a fairly well-known penny stock trader to see what I could learn. One of the things which he does that I found very interesting was his "Five Lesson Friday." At the end of every week, he puts together a list of five things learned for the week. They might be things he did wrong, things he did right, or things he could have done better, but they're all lessons about stock trading.

I started thinking, trading is important to this guy - it's how he makes money. So, he sets aside the time at the end of every week for reflection to see what he can learn from his week of trading. Just like trading stocks is a part of his life every day, being a Christian is a part of mine every day - it's important to me. Despite the importance of my Christianity, I don't often take the time for reflective analysis of my experiences as a Christian. How can I learn from my mistakes if I don't even take the time to recognize them? How can I improve, how can I become more like Christ, if I don't even take a periodic look into my recent past to see where I've been and how I've been doing?

For myself, and likely many others, I often deem it acceptable enough to simply read a few passages from the Bible, read a devotion or two, and go to church on Sunday. Sometimes I even miss one (or more) of these pretty basic and easy things. Maybe it's partly because I don't want to look back at the ways I've screwed up. Maybe it's because I'm too lazy, or maybe too busy. If there was money on the line, would I be able to find the time? Shouldn't I be even more concerned about my soul? Even at work we review our past work, and we review each others' work to help educate, correct, and improve the quality of our product. Shouldn't we be doing that as Christians as well?

As we ring in the new year, I want to encourage everyone to challenge themselves, and maybe even find some other people to challenge you to become a better Christian. Take a look at where you are right now, and determine that you want to become more like Christ in 2016!