Practice Makes Perfect

You may have heard that phrase somewhere along the way.....practice makes perfect. Maybe from a piano teacher or a coach. Maybe from your parents. I'm quite certain that in my years as a piano teacher, I said it myself. Always with a smile on my face, I'm sure, as I uttered that mantra....practice makes perfect.....at the same time as I gave instruction to do it again.

Over the years I have come to believe that phrase is not entirely accurate. Practice doesn't make perfect. Only perfect practice makes perfect. After all, if you continually practice something, whether a piano scale or a multiplication table or an athletic technique, incorrectly, the end result is that you have learned the wrong thing!

What is the point of practice anyway? Of those endless repetitions? Practice serves more than just filling time. Some might say that practice is done in order to get it right, whatever the "it" might be, whether in music or in math or in athletics or in any other endeavor. And I suppose that is true. But I think practice is more than that. The point is not that we always get it right.  It's so that we never get it wrong.

Let's apply that point to multiplication tables as an example. If you drill repeatedly (practice) on your 9 times table, for example, you will learn that 9x7=63. Once you have practiced that enough, you will always know that 9x7=63. Further, you will never think that 9x7=72, or any other number. Always and only 63. You won't have to stop and try to figure it out. Or count it out on your fingers. Or question whether or not it is true. If you have practiced enough, if you have learned this fact well, then you will always instinctively know it. You will always get it right. 

The same principle applies to musical scales or football plays or how to hold a baseball bat. Perfect practice makes perfect. But imperfect practice (practicing the wrong numbers or the wrong technique repeatedly) will lead to an incorrect result every time. However, when you correctly  practice repeatedly, you will always get the desired result because you are so well trained that you can't do it any other way.

Apply that principle to the spiritual realm. The Apostle Paul instructed Timothy to "charge certain persons not to teach any different doctrine, nor to devote themselves to myths and endless genealogies, which promote speculations rather than the stewardship from God that is by faith......by [this] some have made shipwreck of their faith. (1 Timothy 1:3-4, 19 ESV).

How do we hold to sound doctrine? How do we practice our doctrine in such a way as not to "make shipwreck of our faith"? Might I suggest that the place to begin is in the Word of God itself. In learning what God has to say rather than relying solely on what others say about Him. In reading the Word of God rather than relying on books about the Word of God.

In order to hold to sound doctrine, we must immerse ourselves in the Word of God. We must read it regularly and repeatedly. Not just once in a while. Not just once in a lifetime. But over and over. It must become so ingrained in us that we will know with certainty when something we hear is contrary to the Word. So that our senses are finely tuned to what God has to say. So that we know it well. So that we can't get it wrong!

"Be diligent to present yourself approved to God as a workman who does not need to be ashamed, accurately handling the word of truth."  (2 Timothy 2:15 NASB)