By Kenneth Theriault
When I attended Swish basketball camp as a youngster, I had no idea how much I would remember some of the sayings of the coaches.
Regarding personal responsibility: “Every time you point a finger at someone else, there are three more pointed right back at you!”
Regarding teamwork: “Years from now, no one is going to remember what kind of player you were, only whether or not you were a good guy!”
Regarding personal sacrifice: “It is easy to be ordinary; it takes courage to excel!”
I remember all of those sayings, even though they were mixed in with teaching me to shoot like the ball was coming out of a Coke bottle and how to drop step and slide on defense. What’s that, you ask? Yes, back when I played basketball, we actually used to play defense.
But then there is one phrase that people often get wrong.
I hear the phrase “practice makes perfect” thrown around a lot. When I played sports as a kid, one of our coaches challenged that saying. He told us that if you practice doing something wrong over and over again, you will eventually make that wrong way permanent. If you practice doing it right, you will make the right way permanent. So he changed the saying for us to: “Practice makes permanent.”
Lately, I’ve realized that the time I spend in God’s Word is actually a lot like practice. If I spend time reading my Bible daily, attending Bible studies, and going to church regularly, I feel like I am practicing the right way—or at least the way the Bible teaches me to. Over time, when I practice like this, I find myself focusing less and less on the world and more on my faith and what God wants from me. I am practicing the right way, and the results are the proof.
That only works, though, if I continue to practice the right way.
For some reason, my focus on what God wants can be surprisingly perishable. If I start taking shortcuts—maybe I don’t read the Bible for a few days, I miss church, or I skip a few Bible studies—I find my focus slowly turning back toward the world. My lack of proper practice becomes a form of practicing the wrong things, and once again, the proof is in the results.
Without that regular practice and without surrounding myself with God’s Word, it doesn’t take long for me to trickle back toward the ways of the world. The cure is pretty simple: go back to the basics. Read the Bible. Go to church. Attend Bible studies. Get back to practicing the things that keep my focus where it belongs.
When your mind is apart from God, it is easy to lose focus. There are simply too many distractions competing for our attention, taking up more and more space in our minds and leaving less and less room for God.
Does this ever happen to you? Do you slowly stop doing some of the things you used to do to strengthen and practice your faith?
If that sounds like you, I have a suggestion: Go back to the basics.
Set aside time every day to read your Bible. Make time to listen to a devotional or attend a Bible study, whether in person or on Zoom. And most importantly, go to church and worship. There is strength in being around other believers, and that fellowship helps keep us focused on what really matters. Our church has several bible studies you can check out.
Along with regular church services and Bible studies, our church offers plenty of opportunities to serve—opportunities that keep us around like-minded believers while giving us the chance to serve Jesus’ flock. As it happens, there will be a Ministry Fair this weekend where you can talk with representatives from the various ministries in our church and see if the Holy Spirit moves you to serve alongside them.
Maybe those sayings from my old basketball coaches apply here, too—just in a slightly different way.
“It is easy to be ordinary; it takes courage to excel.” It is easy to sit on the sidelines. It takes a step of faith and a little courage to get into the game and serve.
“Years from now, no one is going to remember what kind of player you were, only whether or not you were a good guy.” Years from now, when someone thinks back on something you did for them, I believe they are more likely to remember your kindness than the actual deed itself.
And finally, “Every time you point a finger at someone else, there are three more pointed right back at you.” Maybe there is another way to look at that one. When you reach out your hand to help someone else, all of your fingers are pointed toward them. For that moment, your focus isn’t on yourself at all. It is on serving them.
Funny how lessons learned on a basketball court all those years ago can still apply to serving Christ today.
Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, practice doesn’t make perfect. None of us is going to practice our way to perfection. We can’t read our Bibles enough, attend enough church services, or perform enough acts of service to earn our way into Heaven. That gift comes only through Jesus Christ, who died on the cross for our sins so that, through Him, we can be made right with God.
Practice doesn’t make perfect. Jesus does what our practice never could.
But practice does make permanent. And the things we choose to practice today help shape the person we become tomorrow. Hope to see at church, bible study or in the service soon!