This evening I was playing for the college badminton team. We won the match 9–0, mainly because the other team failed to show up… Not wanting to waste the time, we played some friendly matches among ourselves instead.
One thing that’s important to know about me is that I started playing badminton when I was six and carried on all the way through to university. That’s twelve years of playing multiple times a week, and I even took a coaching qualification along the way. Twelve years of practicing shots and technique, and learning the tactics of the sport.
It also means that even after a ten-year hiatus, I still know which end of the shuttle to hit!
In one of our games this evening, I won ten consecutive points on my serve (or immediately afterwards). That’s because I spent time practicing it, over and over again. We were always taught that the serve was the most important shot of the rally, so I invested time in getting it right.
I practiced the grip and the movement until they became second nature. I hit countless shuttles over the net to an empty court, aiming for the same spot on the other side. I practiced until I could probably do it in my sleep.
Now, it might be a bit predictable. If you face me in doubles, you’ll probably know what’s coming. I’ll start with a short serve towards the centre T. But that predictable serve is good enough that it won’t give you much of an advantage. You won’t be able to smash it straight back at me, and you’ll probably have to drop your racket to return it, which usually means the advantage swings to my team.
So what does this have to do with faith?
There are aspects of faith that are just as foundational. Spiritual disciplines like prayer, gratitude, and reading scripture grow and deepen as we move through life.
When we start out, we often have to concentrate quite hard on what we’re doing. In prayer, we might need a structure to follow or a list of things to pray for. We might need to deliberately set aside time to practice gratitude. We might use a set of questions to help us reflect on the passage of scripture we’ve just read.
But over time, something begins to shift. The rhythms become more familiar. The habits begin to settle in. We don’t have to concentrate quite so hard on how to do what we’re doing, and instead we find more fruit in simply doing it.
Maybe these disciplines are already second nature to you. If so, I wonder how many years of practice helped shape them.
Or maybe you’re still at the stage of practicing the movements and learning the structure. If that’s you, I encourage you to keep going.
Because just like that carefully practiced serve, the foundations we build over time quietly strengthen everything that follows.
The Reason for my Hope Blog 