Why You Should Update Your Phone This Week

If you’re an iPhone user, you probably already know that Apple releases a major new version of the device’s software every September. This year is no different, with iOS 13 coming out very soon. If you’ve got an iPhone 6s or newer, you can download the update this Thursday.

I’m a nerd, so I’ve been playing with the beta versions of iOS 13 all summer. But I know that a lot of people are wary of updating their phones and having to learn new features, so I thought I’d share with you a few of my favorite things about the software and why I think it’s worth the update.

Here are my iOS 13 highlights.

Photos

Let’s be real: Besides texting and browsing Instagram, the thing people most use their phones for is taking and viewing photos. No vacation or visit to the coffee shop is complete without a few snapshots, right? We love taking pictures with our phones, and Apple knows that. Which is why they’ve completely remade the Photos app this year with a focus on discovering old pictures you may have forgotten.

Now, the Photos tab is broken up into sections. You’ve still got the All Photos view that you’re used to, but if you swipe to the right, you’ll see new views called Days, Months, and Years. As you’d imagine, these views group your photos based on time and show you highlights from each period.

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One month in the iOS 13 Photos app’s months feed.

My favorite is Months. When I go to this view, I can scroll through a timeline of highlighted photos and videos from each month all the way back to when I first got an iPhone. I see vacations, birthdays, big events, and some small moments I’d forgotten about, all in one beautiful feed. It’s a great way to re-discover old photos that I normally wouldn’t come across, and I absolutely love it.

If you take a lot of pictures with your phone but don’t always do the best job of keeping up with them, the new Photos app can really help with that. I was amazed at how many pictures I’d forgotten about. Finding them again was a fun, meaningful experience that I wouldn’t have been able to have without iOS 13, and I hope you can have an experience like that, too.

Reminders

To-do lists are my native language. The only way I can get anything done is by putting it into my task management app as a reminder. I get a miniature adrenaline rush every time I check something off my list, and that’s what keeps me motivated throughout the day.

That’s why I was very excited to hear that Apple was completely redesigning the Reminders app for iOS 13. I’ve always found the app to be a great way of getting things done, and with the new features it’s getting this year, it’s an even more indispensable tool for anyone who wants to use their phone to stay organized.

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I love how clean and organized my new Reminders dashboard is.

The most noticeable change in this update is the new Reminders main screen. At the top, you’ll see four new smart lists: Today, Scheduled, All, and Flagged. And underneath those are the traditional lists that you create yourself. I’ve found this new layout to be much more functional and enjoyable to use than the old, card-based look.

I love the Today view. It allows me to focus in on just the tasks that I have scheduled for the day without getting distracted by things I need to focus on down the line. I keep my lists very meticulously scheduled, and this allows me to stay on top of my tasks without ever getting behind. The Today view is definitely the one I find myself using the most. For example, I check it every morning to see what I need to be doing for the blog, and it keeps me on track.

I also really appreciate the new customization options for traditional lists. They now include an array of colors and a whole slew of icons that you can use to set each list apart. In addition, new organizational features allow you to group lists together and break tasks down into sub-tasks with different details and due dates.

Basically, the new Reminders app gives productivity-minded people like me tons of new ways to stay organized the way we want to while still maintaining the simplicity of the previous version. Whether you use Reminders to keep up with your grocery list or manage all of your tasks at work, this new update will help you stay organized in the way that best fits you.

Share Sheet

Please don’t read this header and think, “I’ve never even heard of that. I should skip this section.” Even if you don’t know what the share sheet is, I’m sure you’ve used it before. And if you update to iOS 13, you’re going to notice pretty quickly just how different it is.

Have you ever been looking at a photo or a link on your phone and wanted to send it to someone? What did you do? You probably hit that little button that looks like an arrow coming out of a rounded square, right? That’s called the Share button, and that big list of icons that comes up when you tap it is called the share sheet.

Basically, the share sheet is just a list of a ways that you can send things to your friends or from one app to another. It’s a great way to send a picture from the Photos app, for example. And in iOS 13 the share sheet has been completely reimagined in a great way. The new layout is going to mean easier access and faster sharing for everyone.

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I’ve just got to share this adorable photo of Winter with everyone I know.

The first thing you’ll notice in the new share sheet is the row of people at the top. Using artificial intelligence (basically Siri), your phone will suggest people it thinks you might want to share with. Usually it’s the people you talk to the most. And if the person you’re wanting to share with is in that list, all you have to do is tap their picture, and voila! You’ve shared it.

If what you’re looking for isn’t in the top row, though, the second row is a list of apps that you can use to share. You can use this row to send a text or an email, AirDrop to a nearby device, or access other apps or services you have installed on your phone.

Underneath that is a vertical list of actions and shortcuts specific to the type of object you’re trying to share. If it’s a photo, you can add it to an album. If it’s a link, you can bookmark it. If it’s text, you can copy it. And so on. Each action has a handy icon that you can use to quickly find what you’re looking for and get it done.

I really like the new share sheet because it allows me to do whatever it is I’m trying to do more quickly and efficiently. It also just looks great, especially if you take the time to add photos to your contacts. Plus, it’s completely customizable, so you can rearrange everything to make it work for you! While the share sheet isn’t the flashiest iPhone feature ever, I think that these changes really will make a difference in the everyday lives of iPhone users who decide to update.

Dark Mode

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Everything looks cooler in dark mode.

It’s undeniable, people love dark mode. Whether it’s to conserve battery life, to save your eyes from blinding whites when you first wake up, or just because you like the way it looks, dark mode is finally an option on the iPhone. It might take some time for app-makers to get onboard with the new look, but at launch, every Apple app supports it, which makes for a very cool experience.

I personally don’t use dark mode full-time. Instead, I have my phone set to switch to dark mode at sunset and then switch back to light made in the morning. That way, I get the best of both worlds! I think it’s really handy that Apple included this option with the dark mode feature, and I’d suggest you give it a try.

Bonus: Why You Should Update Your iPad, Too

I’m an iPad fanatic. I use my 11-inch iPad Pro for everything from reading to graphics work to writing this very blog post. And this year, Apple is splitting the iPad’s operating system off from the iPhone’s. Starting in a couple of weeks, iPads will no longer run iOS, but iPadOS.

Of course, the two systems still have a lot of similarities. The iPad is receiving every new feature that the iPhone is, including all of the ones listed above. But, with iPadOS, Apple is taking things even further and adding features traditionally thought to belong to computers. And thus, they are making the iPad even more powerful.

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My iPad home screen with iPadOS 13.

On the most basic level, iPadOS rethinks the home screen, allowing for more apps to be included and, for the first time, home screen widgets! There also some deeper system changes like mouse support and finally allowing USB flash drives to be accessed in the Files app. And possibly my favorite iPadOS feature is the full, desktop-class Safari. I can actually edit my website on my iPad now!

These are features that iPad users have been requesting for a long time. The truth is that the device has outgrown its roots as a “giant iPod touch.” People (including me) are using iPads as full-blown computers now, and these updates are Apple’s way of acknowledging that and helping us take the iPad to the next level.

More New Features Coming

Of course, these are just a few of my favorite iOS 13 features. There are plenty more included in the update. If you want, you can download it now and try them all for yourself.

There are also more new features coming in future updates to iOS 13. Rather than putting everything in one big release, Apple has started phasing in some new things throughout the year. The next version, iOS 13.1 is coming September 30, and I’m sure it won’t be long until we hear what’s coming in iOS 13.2 as well. Here are a few things I’m looking forward to:

• automatic ETA sharing in Maps

• sending audio to multiple sets of headphones from one iPhone

• the ability to download and add new fonts to the system

• shared folders in iCloud Drive

• the single most popular feature every year: new emoji

The iOS platform is vibrant and booming. I am always so excited to keep up with what’s happening in it. People use the iPhone because it offers an incredible mobile experience, and that experience is only further enhanced by the updates in iOS 13. It’s a fun, solid update that I’d suggest to anyone who uses an iPhone.

Now I want to hear from you: What do you think of all these new features? Which is your favorite? And are you planning to upgrade? I’d love to know your thoughts in the comments or on social media.

Thanks for reading my iOS 13 preview! I hope you enjoyed it, and I also hope you enjoy all these great new features if you do decide to update. I’ll see you all next week.

I Have No Idea How to Use Social Media Anymore

The social media landscape is more confusing now than it has ever been. Twitter. Facebook. Instagram. Snapchat. TikTok. YouTube. Tumblr. I’ve got an account on every single one of these platforms. I think I even still have a MySpace account that’s out there languishing somewhere. I’ve downloaded every app, filled out every sign-up form, meticulously completed every profile.

And the sad truth is that I’m not even sure what any of it is for anymore.

It used to be so simple. Everyone was on Facebook, the one place for self-expression, life updates, and mindless chit-chat online. It was wonderful. I had all of my friends, loved ones, and people I admired on a single platform where I could see their posts and interact with them whenever I wanted. Life was good.

Then Twitter came along with its simplified take on sharing, and I became intrigued with it. Over time, I curated a feed of friends, acquaintances, creators, and news sources that became my go-to place to quickly find out what was happening in the world. I still had Facebook for personal relationships, and that was enough for me to handle.

But then the new networks kept coming. Instagram for photos. Vine for videos. (R.I.P.) Snapchat for stories and silly, self-deleting messages. And I tried to keep up. I even had a long-running series of videos that earned me the accolade “most likely to do it for the Vine” in college. Social media was important to me because I wanted to be where my friends were.

Over time, though, it’s just become too much to keep up with. In their efforts to dominate each other, every platform has expanded to the point that their features and purposes overlap and become muddled. Some have joined forces while others are engaged in years-long feuds that make interacting across them difficult. It’s a messy, messy space right now, which has made it difficult for me to stay on top of.

All of this has mostly led to disengagement. I still tweet random thoughts from time to time, and I always make sure to share these articles everywhere I can, but that’s about it. My Instagram feed gets updated once every few months when I have a major life update or a new Apple product to show off. All of my snap streaks have gone cold. I can barely even look at Facebook with all the hate, garbage, and downright lies being spread on there.

I’ve become a bit of a digital hermit over the past couple of years, and that’s not something I’m particularly happy about. The desire to connect authentically with other people online is still there; I’m just not sure what that’s supposed to look like in 2019.

The more time we spend with social media, the more we learn about its flaws and pitfalls. We see the way free speech has been abused by Nazis and foreign powers to spread hate and lies. We see the way digital addiction harms mental health and gets in the way of real-world interactions. We see the way the internet can bring out the worst in us, leading us to say things to others that we’d never say in person. Even for people who are successful on social media, it’s still a tricky thing to navigate.

But I believe that there has to be some good that can come out of it. Social media can still achieve its original goals of connecting people, nurturing relationships, and helping us become more well-rounded, informed individuals. We just have to choose to use them in ways that actually serve those purposes.

Which brings me back to my original question: What are all of these platforms for? And more questions: Do I really need all of them? Should I prioritize one or two over the others? How can I best use these tools to share my life and connect with others without suffering from any of their downsides?

These aren’t easy questions to answer. I’m still working through them. But I don’t think the answer is to disengage. This is the way the world works now, and if I want to be a part of it, I need to meet people where they are.

That being said, I don’t have to go about it the same old way, either, following the treads and mindlessly seeking likes and comments. There’s a better way, a more intentional way, to engage, and I’m committed to finding it somehow, even if it takes time.

In writing this article, I’ve been thinking about principles that might make up this better way of engaging with social media. While I don’t have a complete list or a perfect definition for each of these, I’ve come up with a few that I’m going to start with:

• compassion

• sincerity

• depth

• patience

• purpose

These aren’t attributes we usually associate with social media, but I think that we might benefit from practicing them more when we log on and start scrolling. I’m sure this list will change over time, but this is what I’m starting with as my guidelines for social media use going forward.

I wish I had a more concrete answer to give you now, but truthfully, this article is the beginning of my thinking process, not the end of it. So I’ll keep working on it and give you an update once I’ve figured something out.

Or you can follow me, add me, subscribe to me, or whatever else it is these platforms have us doing these days and join me on this journey to finding a better way to use social media. I think we could all benefit from a little more intentionality in the way we engage. My username is devondundee on pretty much everything if you want to connect.

And if you have any advice, I’d love to hear from you. How do you use social media? What tips do you have for engaging in healthy, meaningful ways online? Do you have a set of principles you adhere to online? Any feedback you have would be much appreciated, because these are questions I’m pondering a lot lately, and I sincerely want to learn.

Thank you for reading this week’s article. I hope you’ll come back next week for another one. Until then!

Hamilton: I Am Not Throwing Away My Shot

Hamilton has a special place in my heart. Katherine and I love the musical so much that when we got engaged last year, the first big purchase we made together was a set of tickets to go see it when it came to Tulsa. (We also played a song from the soundtrack as the walk-in music at our wedding!) And so we were ecstatic when, a couple of weeks ago, we finally got the chance to see Hamilton live.

The show was amazing. It’s like an opera in that there’s no dialogue, only singing (and a lot of rapping), so I already knew every word. But seeing it performed live and acted out on stage really brought the music to life and made the experience of hearing it that much more powerful. We laughed, we cried (literally), and we had just the best time seeing our favorite show.

I’m still reeling from the experience. It was something I won’t soon forget. And so I thought I’d take the time this week to share my love of Hamilton with you in the form of the biggest lesson it’s taught me. I’ve spent a lot of time with the soundtrack to this show, and it’s had a profound impact on me both emotionally and intellectually. While there’s a lot to be taken away from it, there’s one thing that I keep coming back to:

I’ve never felt more patriotic than I do when I listen to the Hamilton soundtrack. That may sound strange, especially coming from me, but let me explain.

If you’ve been around here for long, you know that I’m not shy about criticizing my country. We have a lot of issues right now, and we’ve gotten a lot of things wrong throughout our history that are still hurting countless people today. But the older I get and the more I learn about the world, the more I appreciate the unique things that the U.S. has contributed to the world and especially the ideals behind those contributions.

As you’d imagine, Hamilton tells the story of Alexander Hamilton, the immigrant founding father who served as George Washington’s secretary, argued for the Constitution, founded the first national bank, and is now commemorated on our $10 bill. But in telling his story, it also covers a good deal of the history surrounding the Revolutionary War, the founding of the United States, and the growing pains the nation faced in its infancy. I knew the gist of this story from school, but seeing and hearing it played out through the characters in the show shed a different light on the history for me.

It forced me to imagine what it was like for the actual people living at the time—not just the big names, but for the common people whose names are lost to time. In a period of unrest and uncertainty, these people were growing up, getting married, having children, working to provide for themselves, and trying to find their place in the world. Real people with real concerns and real stakes were living out this story that we hear and celebrate all the time but have become so distanced from ourselves.

For them, this wasn’t a story. It was real, everyday life. Their very lives and livelihoods were at stake. And they chose to undergo such danger and uncertainty because they believed in ideals that to them were worth fighting for.

Ideals like democracy, giving everyone a voice in the way that they’re governed. And religious liberty, the freedom for individuals to worship however they see fit. And equality, the belief in fundamental rights guaranteed to every single human being. Hamilton and others—real people—fought for these ideals. They founded the nation on them. And that is something to be proud of.

To be clear, their implementation of these ideals was not perfect. Not by a long shot. And we still have yet to fully live up to them today. But one thing I learned from the musical is that, even at the time, there was debate. There were people who were pushing for these ideals to be taken to their fullest extent all the way back then.

Of course, Hamilton was one of them, but there were others. People like his sister-in-law Angelica Schuyler Church, who sings about gender equality in “The Schuyler Sisters”:

We hold these truths to be self-evident 
that all men are created equal, 
and when I meet Thomas Jefferson, 
I’mma compel him to include women in the sequel!

And people like John Laurens, Hamilton’s fellow patriot who spoke out against slavery and tried to helped enslaved people win their freedom by taking part in the revolution. In “My Shot,” he raps,

But we will never be truly free 
until those in bondage have the same rights as you and me. 
You and I, do or die, wait ‘til I sally in 
on a stallion with the first black battalion.

And then there’s Elizabeth Schuyler Hamilton, my favorite character of all. Not only does Eliza show herself to be, as Hamilton calls her, “the best of wives and best of women,” but she also represents the American ideal that I most value: compassion for those in need. In the final song (“Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Tells Your Story”), she sings about her greatest accomplishment:

Can I show you what I’m proudest of? 
I established the first private orphanage in New York City. 
I help to raise hundreds of children. 
I get to see them growing up. 
… 
And when my time is up, have I done enough? 
Will they tell my story?

I’m happy to say that Eliza’s story is being told through this musical. Her story and the stories of these other trailblazers who fought to form this nation into a place where everyone is free, valued, and treated equally—these stories are so inspiring to me. These people are my heroes. And when I hear about them, they instill in me a pride for my country that I haven’t ever felt before.

Hamilton teaches me that I live in a country founded not just by the typical, powdered-wig-clad founding fathers we see depicted all the time, but also by immigrants who wanted to found a place better than where they came from, poor people looking to make a life for themselves, women seeking equality, and slaves fighting not just for freedom from England but for freedom from their slavedrivers right here at home.

America is a place where the poor, the oppressed, and the forgotten can change their lives and change the world. Where we can all work together to ensure that every single person has a chance to thrive. Where ideals like equality, democracy, and compassion aren’t just ideas we believe in, but realities we’re actively working towards. That’s the America that Hamilton strove to create, and I find it beautiful.

We aren’t there yet, but I believe we can get there. If we allow ourselves to be reminded by stories like Hamilton what we’re working towards, then we can make it a reality. It won’t be easy. We’ll need great minds like Alexander’s, bold personalities like Angelica’s, and big hearts like Eliza’s, but our generation has an opportunity to be great, like theirs was, and make a positive impact on history.

This show inspires me to take pride in this unique place I’m blessed to live in. It also inspires me to love this place enough to try to make it better, to push it to live up to what it was meant to be. And I am so grateful to the musical, to its cast, and to its creator Lin-Manuel Miranda for that gift of inspiration.

Hamilton means so much to me. It’s taught me a lot, and I’m better for having heard it and seen it. My hope is that I can take what it’s taught me and use it to make my country and the world a better place. That’s a lot to ask of a musical, but this one certainly lives up to it.

As Alexander reminds us over and over throughout the show, we each only have one shot at this life. One shot to make a difference, to improve things for others, to form the world into what we want it to be. He used his chance to make the world a better place. I want to do the same.

Hamilton didn’t throw away his shot, and neither will I. Will you?

Learning Experiences

I never had one of those made-for-TV moments when one of my parents took the training wheels off of my bike, showed me how to ride without them, and pushed me off into the sunset. Not one that I remember, anyway. What I do remember is receiving a bike as a gift for my twelfth birthday and hopping on, not knowing if I’d take off or fall flat on my face. I was nervous. But I tried it anyway and found riding a bike to be as easy as… well, you get it.

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My first Apple computer was a MacBook Pro that I requested as a high school graduation present. The day it came in the mail, my parents let me stay home from school to play with it. Everything was new, glossy, and exciting. I had no idea how to use it.

That is, until the very next weekend when I was tasked with filming and editing a video in a matter of hours for a church event. I hadn’t even opened iMovie before then, but I became very familiar with it very quickly. And I’ve been editing videos on my Apple devices with at least some degree of capability ever since.

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I’ve learned a million new things since I started working here at the church, some of them technical (like how to maintain a building-wide computer network) and some not so much (like how to survive as an introvert in a position where everyone wants to shake your hand). Looking back, I realize that every single one of those lessons had one thing in common: pressure.

Whenever I face a situation that I’m not familiar with, it always comes with a certain amount of pressure. Usually, it comes in some form of stress. I’m in a hurry to get something done before a deadline, or I’m afraid that my skills are inadequate for the task, or I’m just plain confused because I have no idea what I’m doing. This is the pressure that comes just before I learn something new.

When works starts getting stressful, that’s when I know I’m about to learn something new. Being grateful for those moments is something I’m working on (and getting better at!).

— Devon Michael Dundee (@devondundee) August 20, 2019

It’s taken me a long time to recognize this pattern, but I’m learning not only to accept it, but to actively expect it. When I start feeling the pressure come on, I try to remind myself that the relief of a breakthrough is not far off if I’ll simply press on. And with that relief comes new knowledge, fresh skills, and hard-fought wisdom.

Keeping this in mind doesn’t take the pressure off, but it does make it more bearable, because I know that it will be worth it in the end. The stress is there for a purpose: to push me to the next level, which is one step closer to where I want to be.

And I believe that your pressure has a purpose, too. So if you’re feeling the heat right now—whether it be in your job, family life, or elsewhere—I encourage you to see it not as a burden, but as an opportunity to grow. Stop and ask yourself, “What can I learn from this?” and it might just help you get through to the other side.

To be completely honest, this isn’t the blog post I was planning to write this week. Katherine and I went to see Hamilton on Saturday, and I was hoping to share about that experience with you. But I’ve been dealing with a couple of “learning experiences” of my own at work, so that’ll just have to wait.

I think I needed to write this reminder today more for myself than anyone else, but I hope this short article has been helpful to you, too. If it has, I’d love to hear about it. You’re always welcome to reach out in the comments or on social media.

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I’d also like to give a shoutout to the newest financial supporter of the blog, Dale! He’s been very encouraging of my writing over the years, and I’m so happy to have him onboard in this new way. If you enjoy the work I’m doing here and want to help support it, you can sign up today with a monthly pledge. Any amount goes a long way. 

That’s all for this week. Thanks for reading, friends. I hope to see you again soon!

On Being Christ-Like

I’ve recently been re-reading Red Letter Revolution by Shane Claiborne and Tony Campolo, one of my favorite books. It’s all about living out the words of Jesus—you know, the red letters of the Bible. In this read-through there was a quote from Shane that really stuck with me. I’ve been thinking about it a lot.

He’s talking about out the way the church treats unbelievers, and he says this: “I always tell our community that we should attract the people Jesus attracted and frustrate the people Jesus frustrated.“

Sounds pretty straightforward, right? If we are going to call ourselves Christians (that is, people who are Christ-like), then we should seek to emulate him. We should speak the way he spoke, act the way he acted, call out the people he called out, and spend time with the people he spent time with. That’s what being like him means, isn’t it?

This seems like a very simple concept, and in certain ways, it is. But I wonder if we’re always as good at putting this truth into practice as we are at simply assenting to it intellectually. Shane goes on:

It’s certainly never our goal to frustrate, but it is worth noting that the people who were constantly agitated were the self-righteous, religious elite, the rich, and the powerful. But the people who were fascinated by him, by his love and his grace, were folks who were already wounded and ostracized—folks who didn’t have much to lose, who already knew full well that they were broken and needed a Savior.

Whoa. I don’t know about you, but this bit forced me to stop and pause. If you ask most Christians how they’re supposed to interact with other people, they’ll probably tell you that they should be drawn to those who share their convictions and call out nonbelievers for their sin. But that’s not the way Jesus went about it.

Jesus attracted those who were lost and recognized their own need to be saved; he frustrated those who believed they’d found the truth and became self-righteous and complacent because of it. It almost sounds like the opposite of the way we’re told to conduct ourselves in the modern church, doesn’t it?

After reading this passage from Shane, I really had to stop and consider: Am I attracting the kinds of people Jesus attracted and frustrating the kinds of people Jesus frustrated? Or have I been getting it backwards?

Going beyond that, I had to get real and consider this: If Jesus were conducting his earthly ministry today, would I be attracted to him? Or would I be frustrated by him? That is a difficult question to have to grapple with.

Self-righteousness is such an easy sin to fall into. As believers, we’ve been blessed with knowing the truth of Jesus and the salvation he offers us. This truth is amazing. It changes our lives and sets us right with God, and that is such a beautiful thing.

But if we aren’t careful, we can allow this knowledge to lead us down a dark path. Truth removed from grace becomes twisted, ugly, even hateful. Once we’ve become reconciled to God and started working to live the way he calls us to, we can get to a point where we begin to look down on those who don’t live the same way.

Never mind that we used to do the same and that the only thing separating us from that life is the grace of God. We convince ourselves that we’ve found the right way to live. That our beliefs are the end-all-be-all right ones. That our way of doing things is God’s way. And anyone who doesn’t get onboard is worthy of judgment.

If we’re being honest, we can sometimes become so sure of our beliefs and choices that we act like we don’t even need God anymore. We’ve got it all figured out on our own. Anyone who disagrees with us is wrong. We live the way we do because we believe it’s the way God wants us to, but we’re not doing it to please God. We’re doing it to fuel our own sense of self-righteousness.

That is the exact outlook that Jesus called out the religious leaders of his day for. They’d become so sure of themselves and their ability to follow God’s will that they got lost in their self-righteousness. They started out with a sincere desire to live for God according to scripture, but their lack of grace for other people took them down a path that led to a clash with the son of God himself.

The people who were drawn to Jesus looked quite different. They didn’t come from the religious elite or the ranks of wealth. They came from the outskirts of society. They were the outcasts, the ones looked down upon by the people who believed they had it all together. These folks knew that they didn’t; they were drawn to Jesus because they recognized how badly they needed him in order to become right with God.

These sinners became righteous not through their own right actions but simply by accepting Jesus for who he was and following him. That’s what he wants from us: not for us to be perfect, but for us to admit that we aren’t and to follow him into a better way of living.

Accepting that grace Jesus extends to us shouldn’t lead us to self-righteousness. Rather, it should spur us to extend that same grace to others. Instead of looking down on them, we’re called to reach out to them in love, to draw them in with our compassion, and to show them the full life that Jesus has to offer—a life of joy, kindness, gentleness, and love, not of judgment and hatred.

Coincidentally, my pastor was writing a sermon on the topic of self-righteousness at the same time I’ve been thinking through this article. He preached on Sunday from the parable of the tax collector and the Pharisee and taught us that humility is central to the life of faith. I love that truth, and I completely agree that the solution to this problem is a heavy dose of Christian humility.

If we as believers and as the church are going to live up to our calling to emulate Jesus by attracting the people he attracted and frustrating the people he frustrated, we’re going to have to put our self-righteousness aside and really re-think the way we approach people.

We’re going to have to be more like Jesus’ original followers in recognizing that no matter how good we may try to be, we’re still sinners saved by grace.

We’re going to have to start reaching out in grace to draw in the people Jesus did—not those who look and believe and practice like us, but the poor, oppressed, and outcast who need grace and love just as much as we do.

And we’re going to have to recognize and call out self-righteousness when we see it, whether it be in other believers or in ourselves. Being judgmental is not Christ-like, and it won’t help us live up to our calling.

I’m seeking to live this way in my own life, though not always perfectly. I love to seek knowledge and share truth, but I have to do so from a place of humility, not pride. I’m trying to live with such grace and love that those who don’t know Jesus are drawn to him through me, and when I see hate and self-righteousness within the church and myself, I’m compelled to call it out and uproot it. That’s the way Jesus lived, and that’s the way I want to live, too.

I hope that’s your goal as well. We all have a tendency to get off-track from time to time, but the good news is that there’s always more grace. God is inviting us to live lives full of grace and love, lives that emulate Jesus, honor him, and draw people into a loving relationship with him. May we all live such lives each and every day.