Practice

  In sports, there is one thing an athlete does not like but knows it is absolutely critical to performance during the game or event: Practice. The best athletes in the world practice and train for hours on end. The work-out is brutal, often more intense than the game itself. Why is this? The knowledgeable athletes understand that in practice, if they can endure the workouts that expend them beyond what a game-time situation will call for, then during that game, they will be able to pull out what they need when the game's end approaches. In football, much is said about the 2-minute drill. It is a drive where you may only have one or two timeouts and 80 or more yards to travel in just two minutes of time. The teams have already played 58 minutes of football which every down is stop-full sprint, stop-full sprint. A standard offense will snap the ball 60-80 times in a game. Every player on both sides of the ball need to be in tip-top shape so that when the 2-minute drill is needed, the offense can drive to score or the defense can make that iron-wall goal-line stand. And they way they do this is to practice for hours every week.

  There is more to practice than just conditioning and endurance. The best basketball players will shoot thousands of free throws in preparation for a game. Some high school coaches don't allow a player to sign on until he makes 1,000 free throws. Why is this? The coach knows the player knows how to shoot. The coach wants the player's muscles to know precisely how to shoot, the angle for the shot, the strength needed to make that angle, etc. In drills, the coach knows it does not take long for the players to grasp and understand the play they are doing. But the coach has them do it over and over and over again, well past the point of "getting it". The coach wants the players to the point where all the players have to do is hear the name of the play and they know precisely what to do without thinking about it. They also practice is so they can execute it with little variations that come about due to the scenario or opposing teams set up. The coach wants his players to react to situation the right way without thinking about it.

  The same principle applies to our spiritual lives. God is not going to be satisfied with us just "learning the lesson". Why do we keep facing situations that we KNOW we have dealt with before? Sometimes it is because we "have a lesson to learn", but not always. There are times where God puts something in our path because we need to learn something. But there are also times where God puts us in situations where we have already learned the lesson long ago. It is that God thinks we forgot, but it is that God wants our spirits to be put in a situation in game-time so we will react as he wants us to without us having to think about it.

  The trials and temptations we face are often not because we have sinned. It is often because God is using those to PROVE our salvation and to prove our faith. Looking back to a very specific point in time when we said a prayer can be an indication of WHEN we got saved, but if we are depending on that moment to tell if we are saved, we are missing the point. A Christian life should bear the fruit of a Christian walk. If we have a significant difference between our Sunday morning in church and our Sunday afternoon-Saturday lifestyles, there is a very good reason to check out and see if you are saved. The trials and temptations we face, the spiritual practice and drills we face, they are there to show us that we are saved. I have been buffeted with intense spiritual warfare and I know I have more coming my way. But when those battles have come, I have stood strong, relied not on the prayer I said 22 1/2 years ago, but on the Gospel of Jesus Christ to get through the battle. That one particular encounter was a test. That was a game-time situation. And if I did not have the practice I had in the years prior, I would not have been able to endure through the battle. As I look back, I can see how I could have handled the battle better. And that is what more practice is for. To learn from our mistakes in the game, to prepare new moves, techniques, and tactics, and to better carry out what we already know. Game time is coming. Will we be ready to face it? Will we be able to endure through to the end of the race? And will we be able to overcome all our enemy's tactics to slow us down, trip us up, or knock us down? If we don't practice, we won't make it. We will burn out before we really get started. We have the victory in Christ, but we must walk it out. And we can't walk it out if we don't practice for it.