[TEAMspinella] When are we productive?

Laura: Could you please join me in prayer for our IWC meeting tomorrow?  

Attendance, engagement, relationships, children...all the regular requests!

We will have a program focused on "heros"--and what a true hero is.  Pray for stimulating discussion, and for questions to be stirred that will draw hearts to our true hero!  

Steve and i will be headed to Houston on Saturday for a week+ at Bridgepoint.  Then we are headed to Costa Rica for 1.5 week of vacation!  We would appreciate your prayers for this trip as well.  And for my Mom, as she misses us when we are gone!  Thankfully John, Sarah and Evie will be around for her!

Steve: I've been in a quieter time since the winter holidays. We've had snow, resulting in some cancellations, and we put off our January travel, with our first travel of the year coming up this Saturday. While we have still had some significant activities, it's been quieter. We've even had some sickness (minor, no coronaviruses detected!)

This has caused me to reflect--can I handle quiet? Am I "addicted" to being busy, or to travel? Is it okay to be quiet? What if my life was always quiet or permanently quiet? Will that be the real sign of old age? Will my mind always be filled with racing thoughts and questions?!

One friend told me that it's not just that old people get asked to do less, but we actually become less capable--and are sometimes the last to notice (or we think we're hiding it.) If you think you're the one that told me this, remember, too, I might have heard this more than once--and I've certainly thought it.

I also noticed in the news another leader stepping down, this time because he was identified as abusing his authority--"he was the best preacher/teacher I have experienced, but if you disagreed with him, you had become a law unto yourself--not a good thing." (My paraphrase, but if you want the source, you can email me.)

Productivity isn't bad, nor is good teaching. But our rested performance is often our best performance, the best played music may not be the music that stretches our capacity to its limits, and the best love is not about us. Beyond this, our best news is not about our performance, but rather our reliance on our God. And if we are relying on God for our performance, don't worry--this sort of performance is not that impressive to God. God has been doing these sorts of things all the time, and all throughout time.

Thanks for remembering us and praying for us, whether we're busy or quiet, neither or both.

In the one who keeps us, Steve & Laura

PS Let's pray for the sick and quarantined. Link to my favorite computer graphic right now: Coronavirus graphic from Johns Hopkins CSSE

Steve and Laura Spinella

US: 1930 Springcrest Rd, CO Springs 80920

mail: 9685 Otero Ave, Colorado Springs, CO 80920

Steve cell 719.355.4809, Laura cell 832.755.4261
<spinella@alumni.rice.edu> <

lauraspinella@gmail.com>

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