“A person’s character is their fate.” -Heraclites

What do you do without having to think about it? That is, what sort of behaviors, responses, habits, thoughts, or words flow naturally in and through your life without you having to consciously consider them? The way we answer that question leads us straight down into a foundational part of our humanity: our character. It’s the thing we don’t have to decide about because it’s already formed within us. It’s the identity that ignites the rest of who we are and how we live. Character is, as the Greek philosopher Heraclites once put it, our fate: the person we ultimately become, through the joys and griefs of our lives, always begins and ends with the forging of our inner beings. The scriptures, and Jesus Himself, have always articulated this to us, writing of a God who “looks on the heart” (1 Samuel 16:7) who writes the goodness of His law onto the hearts of His people (Jeremiah 31:33), and who proclaimed the message that one must become “born again” (John 3:3) and “transformed by the renewing of their minds” (Romans 12:1-3). In a world where it seems brokenness, evil, injustice, and pride rule, the scriptures remind us that the way forward is not more productive people, or more politically powerful people, but more deep people, shaped by the way and work of God. And we find one of the principal case studies for this truth in the book of 1 Samuel in our bibles, where we are presented with rich and complex characters from the story of Israel that are meant to create pause and reflection in our own lives on how we can become people of character today. Join us this Fall as we explore eleven central components to a life of character with God revealed to us through the vibrant stories of Hannah, Samuel, Saul, Jonathan, and David, and how these components can make us transformed people in a world desperately longing for leaders and people of character.