Practice makes permanent…Proper practice makes perfect
I once read the above title to this blog and as I read it, I thought that is exactly right; whatever we practice is what becomes a permanent fixture in our lives. Think about your golf swing. Most of us probably taught ourselves to golf and did not seek out the expertise of a golf pro. I know I taught myself, and guess what…I taught myself wrong. Of course, going through years of practicing my “wrong” golf swing, it became permanent in my golf game. When I decided to go for golf lessons to better my game, it became even more evident how bad my swing was. As I tried to correct my swing, it was very awkward and very unnatural. My brain and body were so conditioned to doing it the way I had taught myself for years; that there was a natural draw to want to go back to what was comfortable and felt right. As long as I was taking lessons and kept myself connected to a golf pro, I was able to overcome the bad tendencies in my old swing and was able to start to model the new swing the pro was teaching me.
So, off I went out to the golf course to play a round with my brother and to put into practice my new found swing. Slowly over time, my swing drifted right back to the same old swing I had before the lessons. It was not an immediate shift back to the old swing, but it did slowly get there over the course of 18 holes. Why? Because the information the golf pro gave me went out the window and what I had practiced in those early years had become permanent.
I think about my old life prior to having a relationship with Christ. My old life is just like my golf swing, those destructive activities, attitudes, and poor behavior are what I had learned and they had become permanent and comfortable in my everyday life. Just like seeking out a pro golfer to help my swing, I needed Jesus Christ to help me change the old behaviors in my life to a new way of living. When I was with the golf pro, I was able to model the correct swing and behavior that he was teaching me, but as soon as I walked away from him, my golf swing behavior slowly drifted back to the old habits. Just as I needed Jesus Christ to change and break the old tendencies in my daily behavior and thought process, I also need to stay connected with Him so I can model the correct behaviors that He wants me to model. If I let myself drift away from Him, just like my golf game, my daily behaviors will slowly drift back to the same destructive behaviors I had before becoming a Christ follower.
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