Tonight I practiced both my bass and my bassoon. In our upcoming New Horizons Jazz Band performance, there are a couple places where the bass line amounts to a solo, and I don't want to mess it up. I've been working regularly on the pieces we'll be performing, and bit by bit, I'm moving towards being able to play it flawlessly. For these fumbling fingers, that's quite an accomplishment. On the bassoon, I began working on the lesson book I bought last week. Bassoons have one of the widest ranges of the scale of any wind instrument, a full three octaves and more. The fingering of the highest notes of the upper register are oddballs that don't follow a logical order. I've learned a few of them, but I have to keep checking my fingering charts. My lesson book is taking me to places I've never been before, but again, bit by bit, I'm learning them.
Pastor and motivational speaker John Maxwell, once said that "Practice doesn't make perfect; practice makes permanent." Anyone who's tried to unlearn a bad habit, whether it's a golf stroke, swinging a baseball bat, or the mishandling of a firearm, know the truth of his statement. Practice is a good thing, so long as we are practicing the right things in the right way.
My favorite quote regarding practice is "You can't get by trying what takes training to achieve." In Christian circles, we tend to think that trying harder will help us be the persons we ought to be. Of course, such thinking is nothing more than legalism. And it doesn't work. I could try all day to bench press 300 pounds, but no amount of trying will get the job done. People who have trained, adding weights a little at a time, are able to do it with ease.
When I first picked up the bassoon after a fifty year hiatus, I tried hard, but my playing was pretty dismal. One evening while I was practicing, Linda was talking with her sister on the phone. "What is that noise?" Penny asked. I have to admit, it sounded like a moose in labor. But I've been practicing, and bit by bit, it's sounding better and I can play stuff that was beyond my abilities a mere months ago.
It's the same in life. The Christian disciplines of prayer, Bible study, meditation, worship, tithing, the sacraments, and such, are not meant to earn our salvation; they are the means by which we practice holiness "without which we will not see the Lord" (Hebrews 12:14). Just as in any discipline, if we practice the wrong things or do it the wrong way, we won't get the results we need or want. Casual skimming of Scripture and disjointed or selfish prayers won't help us in our desire to grow closer to Christ. Neither will giving or worship in which we are more concerned with how we appear than that Christ is honored.
Tonight, I am grateful for musical disciplines that remind me of the spiritual disciplines I need. I am too prone to laziness and carelessness, and need the reminder that my instrumental practice gives me, calling me to give God the same kind of dedication as I give my music.
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