“You will keep in perfect peace those whose minds are steadfast on You.” (Isaiah 26:3 NIV)
How do we gain and maintain a steadfast mind? Practice. Despite what your band teacher may have told you, practice doesn’t make perfect, practice makes permanent.
I don’t remember a lot about my growing up years, but for some reason I do recall learning my letters: first in pre-k print and later in second grade cursive. I can still picture my number 2 pencil in childhood grip, tracing the sample letters over and over, each line of characters lightening until they faded away altogether and I was filling the page on my own with perfectly executed a’s and q’s and g’s.
We are strengthened by the power of the Holy Spirit: suddenly equipped for Christian living, yet the day to day will still require discipline. We read His word daily. We diligently apply it to our lives. We follow the lines until we know them by heart and then we live them out for the world to see; steadily, faithfully, until He comes again.
The world is in upheaval right now. Some well-versed christians are still steady, still in peace because they have put in the 10,000+ hours of practice it takes to be an expert. Some others are swaying in the wind, undone by shouting screens. It’s time, my friends, to return to the basics. Open the Bible and start tracing scriptures until you know them by heart again. Practice makes permanent.
“Trust in the Lord forever, because the Lord, the Lord Himself, is the rock eternal.” (Isaiah 26:4 NIV)
Lord, our world is in an uproar but You are the rock unmoved. Help us today, to hold fast to Your promises. Give us the discipline to trace truth out on lined sheets of paper, to hid it away in our hearts and memorize it as manna for our minds. Steady us in Your promises, make us steadfast in You. Amen.