“Listen to a man or woman pray and you’ll discover the real person” – that was an early introductory comment in a sermon I heard recently. The speaker was, obviously, referring to how character is revealed as we go about our daily lives. Character, suggests NT Wright, “is a pattern of thinking and acting that runs through the entire course of our lives.”

What we believe is really revealed in how we act.

“What’s down in the well comes up with the bucket” is another way of saying this.

Who we are will tell in our reactions more than in our actions – and certainly who we truly are impacts every part of our lives. Our weaknesses impact our strengths, our private struggles don’t live in isolation.

That’s why overhearing the prayers of a man or woman begin to tell you who they really are, for when we dwell deeply and quietly we begin to reveal our inner self.

Jesus put it this way… “A good man brings good things out of the good stored up in him, and an evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in him.”