Learn from one another. Love one another.

From today’s reading…

From Ezra here in Nehemiah chapter 8 to Philip with the Ethiopian in Acts chapter 8 and beyond we see stories of more knowledgeable, more experienced leaders helping believers expand and deepen their own knowledge and understanding of God’s will.

It’s how we learn to walk, talk, read…and do Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu! (I think some of my elementary school nuns took Krav Maga the way they’d tan our hides for cutting up…but I digress.)

It’s how we learn math, and geography, and driving and cooking. It’s how we learn sales, marketing, copywriting, and negotiation.

It’s how we learn to shoot a gun, catch a fish, and grow a tomato.

It’s also how we learn to love God, love our spouses, love our children, love our neighbor.

We learn by doing. We learn by applying. We see far because we stand on the shoulders of giants who have come before us.

Then we share what we have learned with our spouses, our children, our neighbors so that we can all, collectively, benefit from the work and experience of one another.

You weren’t called to live as a hermit in isolation, which means you weren’t called to learn in isolation.

If God is love it means God is community because in order for love to exist there must be someone else to love.

So open up, participate, share, learn, allow your ideas to be challenged because muscles, hearts, and brains grow by being worked.

And when you grow it’s the best way to…

Stay the course. Keep the faith. Endure.