Out of Practice
Hey there happy readers! How you guys doing? How’s the new year treating you so far? I’ve had a hectic start, no thanks to the wise guy who made January/February exam period a thing. Like how did they approve of such? You can’t even enjoy the December holidays because you have a book in front of you the entire time. Not that I mind reading, but reading about the different approaches to counselling and psychotherapy is not my kind of read for the holidays.
Anyway, the whole experience of preparing and studying for an exam was a horrible reminder of how out of practice I was. The last time I wrote a three-hour exam was 4 years ago. It was like re-learning how to ride a bicycle. Okay, maybe that’s not such a good example because I’ve never forgotten how to do that, but I think you catch my drift.
I’m a night owl, my brain functions better at night so I always studied at night. I’d go to bed in the wee hours of the morning. Not this time, my brain and body simply refused to go past midnight no matter how hard I tried. I was so shocked at myself. I hardly slept before an exam, but this time around I was fast asleep on top of my bed cover, fully clothed, at eleven thirty pm. Not to mention how painful my fingers were while I wrote, I finished the last hour of writing using only the tips of my fingers. And I didn’t even finish!
Driving home after writing I was reminded of a verse in the Bible, Hebrews 5:14. "But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil.”
I’m not going to speak about this verse in context but I’m going to focus on the concept it presents to us. The mature are not those who simply know things, but they are those who have trained themselves. This means being mature is not a gift, we can’t look at the mature and say ‘lucky them’ as though they are privileged, but maturity is something that we can all attain through training. And how do we do that, by constant doing. The amplified version speaks about practice. Constantly practicing something is what causes me to be trained in that particular thing. I learned the hard way the impact of my four-year gap from studying that don’t do something long enough and you’ll soon start forgetting how and fail performing as usual.
This principle applies not only applies to things that pertain to my earthly existence but my spiritual life as well. When we don’t do God’s Word, we’ll soon find ourselves to be out of practice. We’ll be in church so long, hearing it for so long, that we will think we know it all and have it all figured out. But until we do it, we’ll have nothing of the things we read about in the Bible. And in doing it we have to be consistent, we can’t go on breaks from practicing the word because we’ll soon be out of practice. Like forgetting words in a language you haven’t spoke for a while, you’ll forget how to pray (effectively), it will be a difficulty to tithe and offer, it will be such a strain to read God’s Word, don’t mention fasting. It is true that we shouldn’t make these disciplines rituals but they should flow out of our love and devotion to God. But it is also true that you shouldn’t get used to going without these. You will lose battles, not because your enemy is stronger, but simply because you are out of practice.
So here’s to keeping on.
Driving home after writing I was reminded of a verse in the Bible, Hebrews 5:14. "But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil.”
I’m not going to speak about this verse in context but I’m going to focus on the concept it presents to us. The mature are not those who simply know things, but they are those who have trained themselves. This means being mature is not a gift, we can’t look at the mature and say ‘lucky them’ as though they are privileged, but maturity is something that we can all attain through training. And how do we do that, by constant doing. The amplified version speaks about practice. Constantly practicing something is what causes me to be trained in that particular thing. I learned the hard way the impact of my four-year gap from studying that don’t do something long enough and you’ll soon start forgetting how and fail performing as usual.
This principle applies not only applies to things that pertain to my earthly existence but my spiritual life as well. When we don’t do God’s Word, we’ll soon find ourselves to be out of practice. We’ll be in church so long, hearing it for so long, that we will think we know it all and have it all figured out. But until we do it, we’ll have nothing of the things we read about in the Bible. And in doing it we have to be consistent, we can’t go on breaks from practicing the word because we’ll soon be out of practice. Like forgetting words in a language you haven’t spoke for a while, you’ll forget how to pray (effectively), it will be a difficulty to tithe and offer, it will be such a strain to read God’s Word, don’t mention fasting. It is true that we shouldn’t make these disciplines rituals but they should flow out of our love and devotion to God. But it is also true that you shouldn’t get used to going without these. You will lose battles, not because your enemy is stronger, but simply because you are out of practice.
So here’s to keeping on.
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