From Pastor Cheri: Training and Practicing as Followers of Jesus

I have never run a marathon. To be honest, I doubt if I ever will. Lots of people set this as a life goal. They set up a training schedule. And they do it. These are ordinary people, not professional athletes. They are regular people who decide to do something extraordinary, so they train. They make a commitment and then they talk to someone, an experienced marathon runner, a coach, a trainer. They set up a training schedule. They stick to that schedule. They run a marathon. And then they celebrate a job well done!

I suppose I could run a marathon if I set my mind, and my body to the task. But I just don't like to run. So it's probably not a goal I will ever set for myself. I don't have the drive to accomplish this achievement in my life.

But I have other goals. I want to be the person God desires me to be. I want to live my life in tune with God. I don't want to be so hard on myself all the time. I don't want to live in fear. I don't want to rush around so much always trying to please other people. I want to rest in God's love for me, and trust that I'm ok, and that God loves me just the way I am.

I want to live as a beloved child of God.

Guess what? To know. . . really to know without a doubt that we are loved by God, is something that takes practice, and training, just like the training it takes to be a marathon runner. It takes the practice of daily prayer, and meditation, and resting in God. And just like a person who wants to run a marathon, and has to find a good coach, or trainer, or "running buddy," we need some sort of community to walk with us when we want to learn how to be the people God wants us to be.

When I want to practice being the person God put me on this earth to me, I need other spiritual friends, mentors, teachers, or pastors, to walk with me, to encourage me, challenge me, and ask questions of me along the way. The spiritual journey is not something to be done in isolation -- we learn from others who have gone down this road before us.

You see, somewhere along the way, we followers of Jesus have gotten the wrong idea. We got the idea, that all we had to do was make a one-time decision to follow Jesus, and then we were done. It's as if a person can decide one day to run a marathon, and get up the next day and be ready to run it. Marathons don't work that way. Neither does the life of a Jesus-follower.

The radical life of a Jesus follower means a life of practice and training. For most of us, this means a daily practice of prayer. During this season of Lent, the forty days from Ash Wednesday to Easter, I am encouraging our Village community to take on some new practice, such as the practice of daily prayer, if this is not something you are already doing. There are two daily devotional links on our web site, that I can recommend, as a tool to help: Inward/Outward and the UCC Devotional site. You can subscribe to either or both and have a daily devotional e mailed to you. Or you can simply read a portion of your Bible or some other spiritual reading each day. Another good resource is Brian McLaren's book Finding Our Way Again: The Return of the Ancient Practices. In this book, McLaren discusses the importance of spiritual practices in our daily lives.

Or you can simply be still for 5 minutes each day, and breathe, and listen for God. This is also a spiritual practice.

In my weekly blogs during Lent, I will continue to discuss the importance of spiritual practices such as prayer, prayer walking, retreats, and fasting in my own life. I invite you to share your comments in response to this blog. What challenges do you face as you try to develop some training routines around daily prayer practices? How does the practice of daily prayer impact your life? I'd love to hear from you.