Greetings Children of God,

"Doing something you're bad at can make you better at what you're good at, as well as potentially making you good at something new." Arthur C. Brooks

Brooks has the practice of giving talks in languages he learned as an adult to stretch him and force him to sharpen his linguistic skills. He discovers that this practice also improves his ability to communicate in his first language.

This idea is baked into following Jesus. As we come to the close of our season of Epiphany where we focus on God being revealed namely through Jesus. For 2 weeks we explored the Sermon on the Plain in Luke with blessings, woes and the challenge to love our enemies, all things that Jesus lived through. Jesus’ discipleship training stretches our communal living skills and as we do God is revealed and made known to us. The season of Epiphany culminates with the celebration of the Transfiguration of our Lord and we feast on praising God with our alleluias and halleluiahs.

Then the cycle begins again with the season of Lent starting on Ash Wednesday, March 5 and we are asked to do difficult things like repent, pray, fast and works of love. I don’t know if you consider yourselves bad at these things, but these activities are exercises that stretch our humanity and help us discover our home in God as children of God, created in God’s image, and followers of our best human, Jesus.

I pray for God to be made known in your life as you stretch and grow in your discipleship through the exercises Jesus gave us.

Bold Inquisitive Belief Loving Expansively,

Pastor Connie Spitzack