We’ve turned the page to October, and we’re headed down the home stretch of another year. These years are moving too quickly! Would someone kindly put the brakes on?

I like to read. Some of the best books I have read are the simplest. There’s no rule anywhere that I’m aware of that says that a book has to be hard to understand in order to be good.

A while back, I read a simple book entitled The Four Agreements. I noticed it again on my bookshelf the other day and thought I would share some of the simple wisdom this book contains. It speaks to me; perhaps it will resonate with you. In setting the stage for sharing the agreements, the author, Don Miguel Ruiz, says that if we want to live lives of joy and fulfillment, we have to break any agreements we have made that are based in fear so that we are open to entering into agreements based on love. He then proceeds to share the four agreements that we are able to make with ourselves and out of which we may live in our relationships with others.

Be impeccable with your word. Essentially, this entails speaking words that emanate from truth and never speaking words that can be characterized as gossip. Gossip, he says, is the human equivalent of a computer virus; it causes confusion and chaos. Use the power of your word in the direction of truth and love. I preached recently on this topic, using The Letter of James, in which we are powerfully admonished to be careful about the unwise use of these tongues of ours, which can bring great beauty into being and which can also create great pain and destruction.

Don’t take anything personally. In my own personal journey, this is one that has often tripped me up! I like what Ruiz says. “Nothing other people do is because of you. It is because of themselves.” He speaks a fundamental human truth. But, as one person has said, we often live in such a fog of projections that we have learned not to recognize the difference between what belongs to us and what belongs to others. Nothing anyone else does is because of you. They may seek to blame you, but that, too, belongs to them. In the best book on forgiveness I have ever read, Fred Luskin’s Forgive For Good, Luskin speaks of learning to “rarely if ever take offense.” This “agreement” is like preventive maintenance! Just think of how little we would have to forgive if we learned not to personalize the actions of others to begin with. Perhaps I’m not the only one still working on this.

Don’t make assumptions. How often in my life have I replaced what is real with what I assume to be. We all know the old saw about what happens when we assume. Conversations with one another, not assumptions about one another, can really help!

Always do your best. This one, like the one above, is self-explanatory. In every interaction, every action, even in every intention and thought, am I doing my best? For us who are Christians, our best is always inspired by the life, teaching, and example we have in Jesus.

These are four agreements that I am renewing with myself. They represent hard work. Please pray for me as I seek to maintain them, so that I can be the best me I am able to be. If you decide to renew these agreements with yourself, please let me know so that I can be praying for you, too.