Practice makes a habit

I am sitting at my daughter's gymnastics practice watching them stretch, hold the "superman pose", and do some killer Pilates core strengthening exercises among other things. They do this each week all to get their bodies warmed up to practice their budding gymnastics skills. This goes on for the better part of 30 minutes before they ever get to the fun parts of getting on the beam, and swinging on the parallel bars. The class is an hour and a half, quite a long time especially when the coach yells: "no sitting down!!"

This stretching and learning, I believe, is the beginning of what a gymnast must endure if she or he desires to be the best. She must practice daily in order to move up in the ranks; to improve enough to move to the next level and that only comes when your coach approves and recommends it. (I am learning all of this as we are new to gymnastics so if you have any input on the gymnastics world please leave me a comment so that I know exactly what this insanity is that my kids have gotten me into!!) Anyway, so the quicker a gymnast improves the quicker she moves up and then the higher she moves up the more hours per week she spends at the gym perfecting her skills. So eventually to be among the best, she is spending the better part of her life at the gym and she's committed to this sport in a way she probably never thought was possible. Quite the commitment if I do say so myself!

Practice makes perfect....or does it? How about practice makes a habit that gradually ebbs and flows into a routine or a way of life? That's essentially what she's done, right? She's made gymnastics such a vital part of her life that it has become more of her life's daily routine instead of just a simple practice session that she attends each day or week.

That's kinda what God wants... He would rather you strive to practice more not to be perfect but to eventually come to the place where your practice has ebbed and flowed into a heart felt daily routine. A routine that does not have you concerned with striving for perfection but instead with sitting at the feet of true perfection! His feet.

I had a friend comment this week that she knew how to pray but didn't know how to have a quiet time. I am beginning to find that some people have been led to believe that these two things are one in the same. In my opinion, they are not. The way I see it is that there is a prayer time and a quiet time (some people may also refer to this as their devotional time). Prayer time, for me, is strictly what it sounds like, a time of prayer. But we'll discuss this later!

For me, a quiet time and how I explain it to others is this, it's a time to get into your Bible whether you pick a book to start with or you have a devotional book to guide your time. This time is going to require some effort on your part. You have to open the pages of your Bible and begin to explore what's on the inside. The pages are full of stories that you wouldn't believe unless you read them yourself! Once you begin to read it you begin to see the way that God desires for us to live out our lives. You begin to see that He had a plan when He created each one of us and that we weren't just dropped here on Earth to fend for ourselves. Isn't that a relief?! It's amazing the things you'll find when you finally pick it up and begin to read.

So how does gymnastics relate to a quiet time??

They both require practice and this practice can produce some pretty amazing results over time. Just like a beginner gymnast can't do a full layout (I don't even know what that is but it sounds really hard!) her first day in the gym, we can't experience everything there is to know about God the first time we open our Bible. It's simple, the more we get into God's Word (practice) the more we learn (or move from level to level). The more we learn scripture the more we are able to pray His words (scripture also called the written word) over the situations that are going on in our lives and the lives of those people around us. Someone once said that there is power in the spoken Word and during this season of my life I have never believed it more!

So how do I get started?

It's easy, I promise! First, find a time in your day that you can be alone without distraction. It may help to put it on your daily calendar for a while until it becomes a part of your daily activities.

Bring your Bible, a pen/pencil and a notebook (a good cup of coffee is an added bonus if you can swing it!). I would start with the Book of Proverbs because it's very easy to understand and it's divided up into 31 chapters. With 31 chapters, you can do a chapter a day for a whole month which is just about how long it takes to incorporate something into your daily schedule.

From there, read a chapter a day and as you come across bits of scripture (I call them treasures, corny I know!) record them in your notebook. You may even want to include the date that you found it as well as the chapter and verse. From there take the treasures that you found during that time and gradually incorporate them into your prayer time, again another discussion for another day.

Hope this helps, if you want more recommendations there are many suggestions online that you can look at. There are also Bible reading plans listed in most Bibles, so you may want to check yours to see if you have one.

Find your place and time of day and get started! It's too simple not to do it, if you've got 15 minutes you can do it!!!