Scripture

Our verse for today comes from 2 Timothy 3:7, ” Always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth. “

Background

” Practice makes perfect. ” Playing a lot of sports growing up, I heard that saying countless times. And then somewhere along the way, people started amending it to say, ” Practice doesn’t make perfect. Perfect practice makes perfect. ” And given the two options, the second does seem to make more sense. For I did a whole lot of practicing through the years, and I never got close to tasting perfection. And neither did those who went before me, and all the ones since. So clearly it wasn’t just about the amount of practicing that you did. You needed to practice perfectly to get perfection. And since you needed to be perfect to practice perfectly, the perfect practice was never going to be, and all you were left with was an exasperating, twisted circle of impossibility. My kids take piano lessons. Recently, a couple of them have hit a wall trying to learn their particular song. They were putting in the practice time, reluctant though it was, but they could not get past these pieces of music. So as I sat with them while they practiced, I quickly realized the issue. Both of them had shortchanged a particular fundamental step to learning music, and now they were unable to progress because of this shortcoming. The practice had been there, but it was flawed. And thus, the desired results were unattainable.

Application

We live in a day where information is everywhere. It literally flies over our heads in the air, bouncing from one satellite to the next, landing instantaneously in our phones and computers. And we eat it up. Smart phones may be smart, but the real genius was the one who knew how ingrained these devices would become into the very fibers of our being. But let me just remind us all that time spent learning one thing is time spent not learning something else. Practicing the wrong things in the wrong way will get you to the wrong place. It’s wise to keep learning, but the wisdom is not in the learning. It’s in what you learn.

Charge

As we seek Him today, take some time to fill your mind with the knowledge of the truth. Saturate yourself in that for a bit and see what you learn.