We're talking about practice?!?

Riley's baseball season ended last night with a team meal at the Pizza Ranch. It was a great season- the kids got better and played well with each game, the coach had the right balance of patience (and knowing that this was a team of 8 year olds) but was also firm with them in teaching the fundamentals (run hard, don't watch the ball, and hit the cutoff), and while we didn't know many of the families at the start of the season, they were great families and it was fun to be with them throughout May and June.

What's interesting is that when the team started practicing in April, Riley was apprehensive about wanting to play baseball. He wasn't getting very many hits and the coach was conducting practice similar to game situations where you only get 6 pitches to make a hit and if you strike out, it counts as an out (side note- this was definitely the most intense season of any sport our kids have been apart of- there's a dad whose job was to keep the book so the kids knew who won and lost). Riley was pretty discouraged and didn't know if he wanted to continue with the whole baseball thing. I think kids and sports is a tricky thing. I am certainly not of the mindset that 'you can be anything you set your mind to' because I believe that God has hardwired us with certain talents, abilities, and passions and wants us to use those to serve him. Try as I might, I was never going to be a professional baseball player. And yet I think 8 is too young to think a certain sport isn't for you. So what did we do? We practiced. Well, first we bought some gear- a new bat, a bag, some balls, etc. There's nothing like some gear to make you feel more apart of the sport! But then we practiced. We practiced throwing, we practiced where to throw the ball, and we practiced hitting using the same real game scenarios of 6 pitches and strikeouts. And over the summer- Riley got better. He ended up only having one game where he didn't reach base and went 3 for 3 on his last game. I was so proud of him- not just for the results, but for seeing that practice makes a difference. As the coach was handing out the trophies last night, he said a little something about each kid and for Riley, he noticed that he had been practicing and was working to get better and that it made a difference.

I'm convinced that practice matters in many areas of life- not just sports. But one area we seem to fail to carry the idea of practice into is our spiritual lives. We get that we have to read to improve at our jobs, but fail to think that we need to read to become closer to Jesus. We get that an 8 year old needs to practice hitting a baseball to get better, but fail to think that we need to serve others to in fact get better at serving others (and also understand what types of serving things we're wired for). We get that kids should practice their instrument to do better at it, but fail to spend time in prayer with God while still wondering why God seems so far away.