Learning Who You Are

Today was another run day.  Lately, that means a 30 minute warm up process, beginning with about 15 minutes of heat on my lower back and lots of stretching and dynamic warmups before putting in the miles.  Today was a 3 mile run, which I had hoped to run as close to race pace as possible.  The first mile was pretty good.  It got much tougher after that.  It's hard to tell if it's the mind or flesh that's most unwilling after that first mile.  But I managed to grind out the last 2 miles anyway.

And, as usual, I had a thought in the midst of that struggle.  It's during our times of greatest adversity that we learn the most about ourselves.  This was mild adversity, certainly.  Back pain is nothing compared to the grief I feel about our world right now.  And I know a lot of you also feel great pain to have discovered again that we live in a world where one man would use his power to slowly kill another man -- seemingly, just because he could.  But we will learn a lot about ourselves in this time of adversity.  Will justice be served?  And, perhaps the stronger question: will we have the collective will to bring about the kinds of changes that will bring good to communities like Minneapolis and beyond?  Time will tell.

And as I continue to wrestle with my life as a pastor right now, I wonder what kind of leader I will be revealed to be?  Will I resist the urge to pretend that it's January 2020?  Or will I embrace that the world and ministry is different now and be courageous enough to lead this congregation forward?  Will we, as a congregation, clamor to get back in the building at all costs?  Or will we continue to trust our public health leaders and seize this chance to give witness to Christ in new and adventurous ways?  Time will tell.

May God strengthen us for this sometimes painful and treacherous journey.

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