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 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.