UMC20190515 Practice makes perfect

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UMC20190515 - Practice makes perfect¶

Ah! I missed quiet time this week… AGAIN! As a teacher, these weeks leading up to exam season are starting to blur together at a fiery pace and the peace that quiet time normally gives me is not being replenished. During Lent this year I made a commitment to try and be still for at least 15 minutes in the morning each day. Scripture, prayer and listening in silence brought me back into presence and helped to quieten my mind. This enabled me to look past my own frustrations with life and see the “Christ-ness” in others. But after lent, this practice began to fall apart as the things I needed to do began to once again pile up.

If you had to ask any Christian how to build a relationship with God, they will say things like reading scriptures, prayer, take time out to stop and listen. This annoyed me. I wanted to be close with God, I didn't want to spend hours in things I didn’t understand. The Bible was hard, prayer was weird. But... then I got married. And I learnt that marriage doesn’t just happen magically. We need to practice planning and prioritizing date nights, we need to practise saying no to friends and work so we can spend time together, and NOONE wants to do the dishes… Although I still have much to learn in marriage, what I can say with confidence is that relationships are hard. They take practice and intention. This thinking has spilt into my spiritual relationship with God. I wish I found a secret way to become Christlike, but it too is hard. It takes practice to read scripture, it takes practice to pray, it even takes practice to be still! 

Practice. This is my word for the month. I will happily say that I am a practising husband, a practising teacher and a practising Christian. Thinking I have arrived is unhealthy. This is when we stop trying or stop moving forward.

Are you practising? Is it hard? Practise… It is a good word.