Practice

Joel heading toward the rainbow in Tampa, FL

I am a recovering perfectionist. On my path to freedom from this terrible burden, I have come across a life changing truth. The truth is that our life in faith, our life in Christ, is something that we practice living into. 

Diving into the study of Spiritual Disciplines has opened the door to spiritual practices and there is no mistake that the word "practice" is part of that phrase.

Jesus taught us it is through grace that we are free to live. We must come to terms with the fact that we need grace because we will never be able to fully perfect the life that we are called to live into (that's what his life was about). We are called to practice a life of faith.

Joel and me on our wedding day

The word practice means that you repeat your behaviors, they become habit, you work at it, you learn and observe and mess up and try again. Someone once told me that "God blesses our most feeble attempts." I believe that when Jesus told his Disciples that if they could just have faith the size of a mustard seed they could move mountains. 

Guys, his expectations are not very high here. What I believe Jesus is saying is that if we TRY to live in Him, TRY to be disciplined then we are deeply blessed with life (growth).

I've been told that when you are married being in love is a daily choice. You wake up and you choose to live into being in love. I believe that life in faith is the same thing. We are given another day by grace and we have the chance to try to practice being God's love. The cool thing about grace as I've understood it, is that God gives us His grace and in the same way we should also offer ourselves grace. 

Dear friends practicing  life in joy

Jesus suggests that life in Him is not easy, it does take commitment, it doesn't always seem like the coolest way of living, and we will not live into our call to faith all the time. As Jesus forgives us and so should we. Try, try again. 

God blesses even our most feeble attempts. Scripture is full of feeble attempts that turned into overwhelming blessings. If I believe that the Bible is God's living word then I must reconcile that my life is just like those depicted in those ancient tales. I too can practice living a life of faith and I too can experience the blessing of trying again and again.