November 30, 2022
Most of my life has been occupied by practice: ground ball drills; study and training in fencing; hours upon hours spent in high school and college practice rooms running scales; memorizing grammar rules and verb charts; reciting outlines of biblical books. All of it has been directed towards honing an internal skill for the sake of external application. Scales led to symphonies, catch led to double-plays, training led to tournaments, grammar led to exams, outlines turned into ordination and so on. But the Bible calls us to a different sort of practice - we do not delve into scripture to hone our own skills but to rehearse the faithfulness of God.
At some point, each of us will run into situations far beyond our capacity to engage, let alone understand what God is doing in and with our lives. Sometimes this happens when we receive something unexpectedly wonderful, but we most often notice it when we’ve reached our limit in difficulty: at our wits end with how to parent our kids; when a disagreement with our spouse doesn’t disappear overnight…or years; when we’d do anything to remove suffering from a loved one, but can’t do anything more than watch and pray. These are the times when we ought to turn to the Bible and rehearse the faithfulness of God - time and time again, his steadfast love has delivered his people. Time and time again; when we wander far from the fold like lost sheep, our good shepherd comes to find us. This rehearsal refers to God’s work - all the while making perfect our faith in Him.
-Matt Allhands
