From the Pastor’s Screen – February 2018

Pastor Deb Davis

There’s a very cute little boy featured in a video that is making its way around Facebook.

The little boy asks a very simple question of his listeners: “What do you practice?”

Do you practice joy? Do you practice peace? Do you practice love? Do you practice compassion? Do you practice forgiveness?

The little boy tells us on that video that we will become very good at what we practice … very good.

So if we practice anger … we will be angry at everything. If we practice complaining … we will be complaining about everything. You get the point.

That little guy made me think about what I do practice and I hope by sharing a little bit about his video, you will think about what you practice too.

Because he is right. What we practice day in and day out is what we will become good at doing and being.

I watched my grandson Tyler practice pitching a baseball every day this past summer … and his velocity increased. I watched him go to the gym every day to work on leg strength. I watched him attend to his diet so he could get stronger. I was amazed at his tenacity.

And I asked myself, do I practice that hard for the things that are important to me?

We have to do the same “workouts” and practicing if we want to get better as well. In the prayer on Page 5 of this month’s newsletter – a prayer written by a former pastor of Jim Harris’. The minister talks about how we so often pray with arrogance rather than gratitude. How sometimes it’s hard to truly give thanks to God because we have so much.

It does seem gratitude is one thing we need to work at every day, along with peace and joy and love and all the rest. Gratitude keeps us the right size and keeps God the right size. When we live out of a place of gratitude … when we live with an attitude of gratitude … we will get good at it. We will become better and better at living with a thankful heart.

That is where a heart for justice begins … when we humbly give thanks to God every day … when we see the miracles everywhere in our lives … when we pay attention to all the love our God has for us and for our whole world.

What do you practice? It’s a great question.

Blessings,