Practice

You desire to increase your shooting percentage from 40 percent to 50 percent before this season starts. You have discussed this with your coach and planned how to achieve this goal. You have taken the first few steps, made the decision to improve and then formulated a plan on how to get there. Does this mean that your goal is now achieved? Of course not.

The only way to achieve this goal is for you to now implement the plan. Doing the hard work that makes a goal happen is the only way to achieve it. You can sit and make plan after plan and talk strategy all day long, but it isn’t until you take to the court and put in the hard work that you will see progress toward your goal.

Most of us understand that hard work is required to achieve the athletic goals we set for ourselves. So, why do we often skip the hard work in our spiritual walk and think setting the goals is enough? For example, you have decided that you would like to work on being more compassionate and love your neighbor. Loving your neighbor is a great goal; you might even know how to achieve it. However, do you work hard to actually love your neighbor?

Do you go out of your way to invite strangers into your comfy life and show them love? Are you patient enough to listen to the life of someone you don’t understand, or are you quick to dismiss? It’s easy to love the ones who agree with you, but what about the ones who don’t?

We often set lofty spiritual goals but do not take the necessary action to meet them. Unlike our sports goal, where the reward is easy to imagine, the reward of spiritual victory is often intangible. We need remember that we do the work of the Kingdom so that God will get the glory – that’s the reward.