Mike’s Reviews > Overcoming Your Shadow Mission > Status Update

To say it again: character formation is absolutely fundamental to our well-being, but it's not glamorous. So often- in our work, in our lives, even in our churches- we think "man, there's so much going on, we can't take the time to work on 'character'." We can do really impressive-looking things, but what we take into eternity is who we become.

If you don't develop the character to support your gifts, they will actually become destructive to you. Your shadow mission will win out and your gifts will crush you. It's only a matter of time. You don't have a choice about what gifts you're given. But you are given a choice of what character you will build.

...Character is your moral and spiritual makeup... It is who we are at the absolute core of our personhood. Character determines our capacity to be with God, to experience God, and to know God. It determines our ability to love and relate to other people.

The mission we devote ourselves to will shape us. Our unplanned, involuntary thoughts and wishes will spring out of it. Noble missions will give rise to noble thoughts, but shadow missions will produce an inner life of hidden darkness and destructive discontent. Shadow missions always destroy at least one person, the one who lives for them.