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(This is a re-run, but I thought it would be a helpful reminder here in the final stretch of our New Year's resolution work. And, I have company I'm enjoying an awful lot this weekend. :)

It was late Thursday night. (Well, it was late if you're a first grader.) Grant and I were sitting on the couch studying for his spelling test. When one can hardly read his spelling words, writing them correctly on a test can be especially challenging. Grant had to write each spelling word four times: once in all capital letters, once in crayon, once in pencil, and once in marker. If you're in first grade, this much writing seems akin to a 10-page term paper in long hand. I was being the drill sergeant, surgery assistant, and enthusiastic comforter.

"Come on Grant, let's hurry. We don't want to be here all night."
Then I hand him his pencil to scrawl the word in upper case letters.
"That looks great, Grant." He starts to count how many words he has left.
"Focus, Grant, Focus!"
Then I hand him his crayon to write the word again.
"Wow, you're doing so well." He flips the page to see what other homework he has.
"Please don't goof off."
Then I hand him his pencil for a third round of "shook."

You get the picture. You probably remember the excruciating tedium of writing when it was a new skill—how your hand hurt, and forming each letter seemed as difficult as jogging a mile. But when you were 17, you looked back and wondered when it got so easy.

I was helping in Jack's class this week when they did their "fact assessment." You remember: 7 x 5 = 35,4 x 8 = 48, and so on. This was another elementary "thing" that was often like mental torture. Before they took the test, Ms. Cruz helped them go down the whole page and recite each problem "6 times 6 Isaiah 36." Some of the kids twiddled their thumbs, some tapped their pencils anxiously, some moved their tired heads back and forth across the desk.

Then she picked up the timer. "Ready, Go," she said, and the two minute timer started. A few whizzed through the test. The ones who had twiddled and tapped were going much slower, stopping too often to count on their fingers. I wanted to coach them "Don't count! Memorize!! Practice, Practice, Practice! You'll never learn if you don't practice!! In tenth grade chemistry when you have to solve a long equation, you'll be kicking yourself for not learning math facts when you had the chance."

Most of us have good habits we'd like to start , or bad habits we'd like to quit. But we want the change to happen like magic. We want to be beautiful without washing our face. We want to be rich without saving money. We want to have perfect kids without training them. We want to know our times tables without any practice.

In my 36 years of trudging through weakness and hoping for miracles, I've learned something. Change happens, but seldom overnight. Practice makes perfect, but sometimes it's the process of practice that God really wants. Paul says this in 1 Corinthians 9: 25-27: "Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last; but we do it to get a crown that will last forever. Therefore, I do not run like a man running aimlessly; I do not fight like a man beating the air. No, I beat my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize." (NIV)

It might not be that God is so interested in perfection, but in the discipline required to get there. It might be the plodding along that God wants- the drudgery sometimes involved in getting better, the repetition that makes us say "God, I can't take another step, or wash another dish, or eat another salad unless you give me the strength to do it."

It might be the practice, not the perfect that God wants.

PS: My husband just pointed out that 4x8 is not 48, but 32. I guess I'm still working on those times tables:)

"Refreshment in Refuge" from Gina Burgess

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