Faith Venture

Sometimes I allow other people to influence my behavior. It’s not intentional. It just happens. Like yesterday when I was unloading the dishwasher. My wife decided to help. She wants to get it done. I unconsciously speed up. I grabbed a coffee mug from one of her favorite sets. It slipped from my fingers. Dropped onto another mug. In an instant what had been one useable object was three pieces of trash.

Once I rushed through everything. And I made mistakes. I overlooked part of the equation or one silly word in the story problem.

Slow is actually fast. And better. A slight reduction in hurry and my wife would have a full set of six coffee mugs in the set instead of five.

A slight reduction in reading speed and I would have more perfect scores on my Duolingo language lessons. A slight reduction in learning new chords on the guitar would result in deeper understanding of the nuances of the chord.

Not rushing through meditation and prayer—priceless.

Pausing to ponder one of Jesus’ stories—deeper understanding.

Slowing down to actually listen to those I’m with—better relations.

Slower can be faster and with more quality.

A group of academic psychology researchers conducted a longitudinal study of children. It wasn’t long term, but did take place over a time period. They were curious about growth versus static mindset. A task was given to a group of kids. Some kids were given feedback that involved verbs—you worked well, you did your practice consistently, and so forth. Another group was given noun feedback—you are so smart, you are a good athlete, and so forth.

Later, the kids were given a similar task. The ones praised with nouns, did not perform better. The ones praised with verbs continued to improve.

I’m standing on the mezzanine at the FMC Natatorium in Westmont, IL. Soon competition at the Illinois club state finals will commence. I brought my granddaughter who made the 800 meter freestyle relay team for her club that qualified from the regional championships. There must be hundreds of young athletes here who have worked hard all season in order to qualify to be here. 

Starting at the beginning of the season when as a younger person in her age group she didn’t think she had a shot at the regionals. I told her every week, just be a little better this week than last. And at the end of the season she swam in eight events at the regionals. I’m sure all of the other swimmers have a similar story.

We adults pursuing the spiritual life may feel like these kids at the beginning of the season. There is no way we can infuse all this spiritual teaching and practice into our lives. But 1% better every day. We consistently read daily. We consistently meditate daily. We consistently pray daily. We perform acts of service as often as we can. 

Then if we pause at the end of a month or year, we can see how our life has changed. We don’t only know the fruit of the spirit, that fruit is even more present in our daily life. We feel at peace. We exhibit more patience. We live with a warm inner joy. People notice our love of others, our kindness, goodness, faithfulness, goodness, and self-control.

Practice. 1% better every day. I can tell you from personal experience—it works.

Chew more; swallow less.

I heard this phrase in relation to eating. The idea is to slow down. In slowing down, you’ll eat less. Eating less leads to losing weight.

What about using this as a metaphor more broadly?

Say with media. Perhaps if we swallow less, we will be less gullible and susceptible to believing lies and distorted truth.

How about with study? What if instead of gulping huge chunks of the Bible and perhaps just memorizing a few rules, we instead read a paragraph or a story and chewed on it for a long time? Maybe you wouldn’t read the Bible in a year. But you may become wiser with more depth of understanding. Maybe you wouldn’t swallow half-thought-out ideas that lead you astray.