by Pastor Tim White

I love to read blogs and I love to write them. My friend of many years Father Luigi is a recently retired catholic priest who served much of his life in the Baltimore area. When he writes a blog, I love to read it and correspond with him. Recently he posted this powerful truth. “Forgive yourself for not knowing what you didn’t know before you learned it.” - Maya Angelou. What a powerful thought. Most people try to go through life without ever changing, which is impossible because we have events and forces that cause us all to change. Sure, we have inborn personality traits, gifts and weaknesses that don’t ever seem to be far away; but live long enough and you will notice that to some degree your strengths and weaknesses will be even more pronounced than before.

For most of us, we have a hard time receiving new ideas. We don’t have to relinquish our responsibility to filter good ideas from not so good ideas. No, we just need to examine new ideas quickly and, after confirming they are a good strategy, we can implement this new way of living. Then as we move on in life's joyful adventure, we can adapt those new ideas to become our ideas and refine them to work better and better as we utilize them to the fullest. Sometimes they don’t work out as we thought because the variables in our lives are changing. So, we start over again in the process of refining our working world view. When we go through that painful process, we grow. God’s definition of success becomes more attainable and we miraculously grow.

Join me this week as we study God’s practical process to grow. It is a lifestyle of invitation and we will become much better at worshipping the living God this weekend.

Your friend for the rest of my life,

Pastor Tim White