Several Sundays back, Desiree, two of our kids (Josiah and Jordan) and I attended the end of the year banquet for the Kenston Intermediate School wrestling team. Des and I pretty much convinced, bribed and coerced Josiah to go out for wrestling this year. He had learned Brazilian Ju-Jitsu in his karate class a couple years ago and had really excelled at it, so this made a lot of sense to us. And we were not disappointed!! Josiah went 29-3 in his first year, won third place, second place and then first place in the tournaments he competed in.
So it was a thrill to sit there at the banquet and hear the coach describe the award for “Best 1st Year JV Wrestler of the Year” and then call Josiah forward. Typical of our amazingly shy 11 year old, he went up, eyes fixed on the floor, took his trophy and made a bee-line back to his seat, until the coaches grabbed him and made him shake their hands.
As Des and I sat there beaming at our son, we could hear some of the other special awards being described and given out. But, one of them caught my attention. This particular award had been created by one of the coaches named Jack Carson. Jack was the inspirational, blood-and-guts assistant coach whose funny quips during workouts kept the parents in stitches and the kids pushing forward when they were getting tired (“Alright, ugly wrestlers down on the mat!! Now, UGLIER wrestlers down on the mat!!”). Coach Carson’s award was called “Practice makes Permanent”. I thought maybe Coach Carson had made a malapropism, meaning to say, “Practice makes Perfect”, but no - he was quite clear.
“Practice makes permanent, guys”, he said in his tough, almost Chicago-like accent. “What that means is simply this: you practice, you practice, you practice…and whatever it is you practice becomes permanent. If you practice a move sloppily…you will make it permanent. If you practice a technique sloppily, you will make it permanent. If you practice your techniques correctly, that too will become permanent. It isn’t ‘practice makes perfect’, because you could be practicing it all wrong. You want to practice perfection in order to make perfection permanent.”
How true…not only on the wrestling mat, but in life itself. To paraphrase C.S. Lewis, we are being transformed bit-by-bit into something completely different, either into something utterly beautiful…or something utterly horrible. Spiritual formation is simply the forming of the soul. And that formation depends on the habits we form that will shape us each and every day. We either intentionally form habits of engaging others in a loving and understanding way, or we form habits of judgment and scorn. We either train ourselves to rigorously engage God’s Word and allow it to reshape the way we think and what we value and how we live, or we fall into our default modes and wing it. We either practice solitude and silence to be with God and to listen or we pray primarily when we are real trouble and need a life raft…only to return to our basic indifference towards God once the crisis has passed. Each time we do something, we practice something. And practice makes permanent. As Oscar Wilde once remarked - by the age of 40, everyone has the face they deserve.
Here’s one of the saddest things I have observed in my 24 years as a professing Christian: too many Christians practice a sloppy faith. Too many Christians don’t take the time to consider what it means to be a Christian and to live out their faith. Or they think that they have to be perfect right out of the chute and forget that salvation is the starting point, not the end game. From salvation comes a life dedicated to Christ that is formed bit-by-bit as we practice the life we’re called to. In 2 Peter 1:3-8, we hear God’s Word encourage us just so!!
3 By his divine power, God has given us everything we need for living a godly life. We have received all of this by coming to know him, the one who called us to himself by means of his marvelous glory and excellence. 4 And because of his glory and excellence, he has given us great and precious promises. These are the promises that enable you to share his divine nature and escape the world’s corruption caused by human desires. 5 In view of all this, make every effort to respond to God’s promises. Supplement your faith with a generous provision of moral excellence, and moral excellence with knowledge, 6 and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with patient endurance, and patient endurance with godliness, 7 and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love for everyone. 8 The more you grow like this, the more productive and useful you will be in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Practice makes permanent!! Coach Carson, you couldn’t have been more true!!
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