We are in a training period

Dear friends who follow Jesus’s way:  This is the training period.  With each marathon and half-marathon I have run, there is a training period.  It’s a time to train the body, mind, and spirit before the race because you can’t possibly just get up and run 13.1 or 26.2 miles without training.  You have to work your way up to it.  You have to be prepared for physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual pain that is sure to come when race day arrives and everything counts.  It’s an intentional time in which the runner tests their limits to know what they are capable of.  Training is all about getting ready for the actual event so that you can keep going when you feel like quitting and can’t take another step.  

Dear friends who follow Jesus’ way, we are in a training time.  It’s time to train our bodies, minds, and spirits.  We need to make sure we are eating healthy and getting the rest our bodies need.  Self-care is vitally important.  We have to train our minds to not be distracted by all the things that will come at us and to instead focus on the things that matter.  This includes being conscious of what information we are consuming.  We have to train ourselves not to react to everything thrown at us.  We have to train ourselves to keep asking a vital question to those who claim Jesus but act with cruelty – “How is what you just said and acted match up with what it means to be a disciple of Jesus?” We have to train our spirits to be guided by the way of peace, so that we remain peacemakers when it would be so much easier to respond with violence.  We train ourselves in faith – to listen to God, to pray, to fast, to study Scripture, to receive the sacraments.  It is God who is our foundation after all.  

And we don’t train alone.  Runners do much better when they train with other runners.  We have to strengthen relationships with other followers of Jesus, check in on them, look out for one another, and care.  We have to speak up when we encounter cruelty and violence.  We have to train ourselves in de-escalation techniques.  We have to lean on empathy, no matter how painful that might be.  

Part of training for a race is also preparing for possible terrible things that might happen.  There are going to be days in which the weather is brutal – too cold, too hot, too wet, too dry, too windy, too humid, etc.  There are going to be days in which your body just hurts, and you don’t want to get out of bed.  There are going to be days in which your attitude fights against you.  There are going to be days in which drivers and those passing by will yell at you and try to run you off the road.  There are days in which a stray dog will attack you.  Training is about expecting these things so that you know how to deal with them, how to adjust, and so you can keep going.  

Dear friends who follow of Jesus’ way, we are in a training time.  Expect that you are going to come across difficult days.  Expect that you are going to come across days in which your entire being hurts.  Expect that you are going to come across people who are going to yell at you, even throwing Scripture at you to condemn you.  Expect cruelty and dehumanizing ways and speech.  Expect violence and manipulation.  Expect that humanity will follow the habits of human history.  Expect to encounter people who live by the ends justify the means, that the strong survive, and that might makes right.  Expect all of this and more.  And train for it, so that you do not react, but rather respond and adjust your path in the ways of faith and in the footsteps of Jesus.  

The author of 2 Timothy 4:7 wrote “I have fought the good fight.  I have run the race.  I have kept the faith.”  That only happens because this person trained themselves beforehand.  They were grounded.  They were realistic.  They didn’t do it alone.  Right relationship with God, others, and the rest of creation was vital.  

The same is true for us today.  Dear friends who follow Jesus’ way, we are in a training period.  Ready yourselves.  The race starts soon.