Practice Prepares Us

Time to practice...

My daughter plays violin. She’s been playing since she was 3 years old. She’s getting to that stage where she doesn’t like to practice much. But then she’ll go through a spurt where she practices in large chunks of time. She knows she should practice every day but it is so tempting not to.

She also plays basketball and soccer. She likes going to those practices because those are newer to her. Plus the joy of a team sport has its appeal to my little extrovert. There are days, however, when she gets excited by a rainout or when practice is cancelled for some reason.

Yesterday she was at a violin lesson playing a particularly tricky part and her teacher said, “That’s why we practice. So that when it comes to the hard parts, we can make them seem easy.”

Practice doesn’t mean you don’t know how to do something. It means you are learning how to do something. Practice really does “make perfect.” This is true for most things in life.

This is definitely true for spiritual disciplines. We practice to be made perfect in love. We practice to connect to God in prayer. We practice to understand the wisdom in scriptures. We practice to let the stranger know they are loved. We practice to let the marginalized know that we care. We practice because when the hard times come, and they will, we know what to do and where to go. That doesn’t make the hard times any less hard. My life isn’t easy because I pray but my life is whole because I do. My hard times don’t break me. They show me how strong I can be with God’s help.

So practice. And when you do you’ll see the possibility of harmony and victory in this world that is ever present in the next.

Until Everyone Hears,

#prayer

#faith

#spiritualdisciplines

#christianeducation