I've been reading an excellent book on personal leadership and growth by Jay Bilas. The book is called Toughness. Jay Bilas was a former college basketball player at Duke and is currently a college basketball analyst with ESPN. He discusses several principles in his book that, if followed, enable one to build resiliency and toughness in life.
One of his early chapters is about preparation. His focus in that chapter is that preparation develops the ability to persevere through whatever difficulty you might face. To a casual fan, college or pro basketball might look like little more than a pickup game played at a higher level. To a player, coach or analyst, the game is much more, and preparation is key to that. Jay wrote that he spends more time and works harder to prepare to announce a game than he did as a player getting ready to play a game.
How does this idea of preparation intersect with our spiritual lives? I've written before about Jesus' teaching about diligence and watchfulness. But we can go further. If the summation of God's call on our lives is to love him with our entire being and to love our neighbor as ourselves, how does preparation play into this?
Simply, we must prepare if we are going to live the life God calls us to. We practice, we think, we read, we pray. All these things are "practice" that help us prepare so that in the moment, we are ready to serve God. For these reasons, Paul writes both, "Train yourself in godliness" (1 Timothy 4:7) and "Athletes exercise self-control in all things; they do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable one" (1 Corinthians 9:25).
By applying the concept of preparation--by reading the Bible, examining the details of our lives, praying for strength, help and guidance, and thinking ahead about how we will handle the different temptations and opportunities in our lives--we will be diligent and watchful as Jesus calls us to be.
Think about Paul's encouragement to train yourself in godliness. How will you do this?
One of his early chapters is about preparation. His focus in that chapter is that preparation develops the ability to persevere through whatever difficulty you might face. To a casual fan, college or pro basketball might look like little more than a pickup game played at a higher level. To a player, coach or analyst, the game is much more, and preparation is key to that. Jay wrote that he spends more time and works harder to prepare to announce a game than he did as a player getting ready to play a game.
How does this idea of preparation intersect with our spiritual lives? I've written before about Jesus' teaching about diligence and watchfulness. But we can go further. If the summation of God's call on our lives is to love him with our entire being and to love our neighbor as ourselves, how does preparation play into this?
Simply, we must prepare if we are going to live the life God calls us to. We practice, we think, we read, we pray. All these things are "practice" that help us prepare so that in the moment, we are ready to serve God. For these reasons, Paul writes both, "Train yourself in godliness" (1 Timothy 4:7) and "Athletes exercise self-control in all things; they do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable one" (1 Corinthians 9:25).
By applying the concept of preparation--by reading the Bible, examining the details of our lives, praying for strength, help and guidance, and thinking ahead about how we will handle the different temptations and opportunities in our lives--we will be diligent and watchful as Jesus calls us to be.
Think about Paul's encouragement to train yourself in godliness. How will you do this?
