Practicing Our Beliefs

I have been interested in quite a number of things, all of which required practice. I loved tennis, water-skiing, racquetball, basketball, guitar, bass guitar, chess and more. It was one thing to "play" those things. It was quite another to be good at them. And, in every case, greatness eluded me.

Because . . . I never practiced any of them enough.

You know the saying:  Practice makes perfect.

An acquaintance of mine who is a professional music instructor modifies this a bit and says it this way: The right kind of practice makes perfect.  By this he means that repeatedly practicing wrongly will not lead to good performance. In fact, one of the hardest things to do is to UNLEARN wrong practices so you can learn good ones. Talk to anyone who has had to unlearn a tennis serve or a golf swing!

I don't remember where I read the quote that follows, nor do I remember who David Dark is, but I love what he says:

The world is the place where we get to practice our beliefs. (David Dark)

Christianity is more than a belief system. It is a belief system lived out in the setting of a relationship with Christ and in the context of the world.

We get to practice our Christianity, in the world.

We get to practice our relationship with Jesus, before the world.

We get to practice our leadership in the name of Jesus, as the world watches.

We get to practice . . . integrity, courage, faith, hope, love, grace, trust and so much more, in the midst of a world that needs to see these things.

We get to practice the presence of God, in the world.

We are not naturally good at any of those things. We must practice them all. But we practice them, not in seclusion or in private, but very much "out in the open."

Jesus said, they will know you are my followers by the love you have for one another. Not because of your belief system or theology of love, but because of your love that is practiced before the world.

What are you practicing today?  How consistently are you practicing? And how well are you practicing it?

And - are you helping anyone else practice something before the world?

Brian Rice