Tennis anyone?
I’ve had the pleasure this past weekend of playing tennis with some of our young people who are on the high school tennis team. Their conference tournament was this week and they wanted a little more practice and asked me if I would come out and hit them some balls. I grew up playing tennis. I learned tennis at a young age, played all through Jr. High and High School and every summer a group of friends and I would travel around playing in tournaments across New York State. I have fond memories of those hours and hours and hours spent on tennis courts. As I’ve gotten older, with kids of my own and work, it has been years since I’ve played tennis. When I first got married I would play some with Amy’s dad who was a tennis fanatic. I played for a short while up here in Caroline with my friend Cyr, but life is busy and my rackets have stayed in the closet collecting dust for a number of years. I was excited when Matt, Andrew and Gabbi asked me to come out on Saturday and Sunday afternoon to practice with them. We had a five gallon bucket full of tennis balls and over and over again I would hit them balls at the net so they could practice their volleys and overheads. We worked on forehands and serves and then volleys again. We’d pick up the balls, put them in the bucket and start the process all over again. Empty the bucket, fill the bucket. Empty the bucket, fill the bucket. I was reminded of the thousands of buckets of balls my mom and dad had hit at me and helped me pick up. You see, part of how anyone learns to play tennis is through repetition. We can read how to hit a volley correctly or watch a video of someone hitting a volley correctly. We may even be able to describe with words how to hit a volley. However, it is only when we hit the volleys ourselves, over and over and over and over again that hitting a volley becomes not only engrained in our head, but also in our muscles, our body and our soul. Thus, when faced with a situation where we are at the net and a ball is whizzing at us, we are able to respond almost automatically and hit a winning shot.
I was thinking on Sunday afternoon on the tennis court how our life of faith in Jesus is so similar and requires the constant repetition of worship, prayer, song, scripture reading and service, all so that our faith becomes not only engrained in our heads, but also in our muscles, our body, our heart and our soul. You see, we can read about prayer and we can watch great worship on TV. We can study music and examine organizations that do great work in the name of Jesus. We can be observers of other people’s faith and be very knowledgeable about Jesus and the Christian life. But friends, it is only when we do faith over and over and over and over again that faith begins to be woven into the very fabric of who we are. By doing faith, practicing faith day after day, week after week, over and over and over, we will get the reward. When we find ourselves in a situation when life is coming at us fast and hard, our whole body is able to respond almost automatically and with Christ we hit a winning shot.
Tennis anyone?
