In this life, we should never stop training. We should never stop becoming.

I say, “should never” because I am reminded of my favorite Andy Stanley quote from Louder Than Words,

“Who will you be in five years? Ten years? I’m not referring to your role or job title. For just a moment, lay aside the dreams that involve your career or net worth. I’m talking about what you hope to find on the inside. What kind of person do you hope to become?

Today, you took a step. You either moved closer to or further away from what you hoped to be. Most people moved further away. A handful overcame the negative inertia of this fallen world and moved forward. But nobody — nobody — stood still.”

If we stop training, if we stop becoming, then we are allowing ourselves to be moved further away from the person we want to become, further away from our true identity in Christ, who God says we are.

Last week I said, we must train. We must practice. If we are not intentional about training and do not practice, we will be pulled away by the negative inertia of this world.

I continue to reflect on the life lessons I am learning as we train our dog.

As I walked Roscoe around the paved circle near our house the other day, again I pondered the training process. Dean and I have been taking Roscoe to dog training. We practice all we learn at training daily at our house. We do the work. Some days we do more work than other days. We are intentional about it. We do this so that when we take Roscoe into public, we hope he is trained on how to behave and who to listen to when there are multiple distractions. We are committed to practicing the skills, training Roscoe, and we understand this is a process that takes time. It could be a couple years before Roscoe is an “angel” in public.

As we walk there are other people, kids on scooter, other dogs, rabbits, and squirrels, these are all distractions to a lively, friendly, 6-month-old puppy. Now at this point in Roscoe’s life he is often still more interested in all the other things than listening to us, but our hope and prayer is that as we train him, as we practice with him in the quiet of our home and as we practice the skills as walk around the circle eventually, he will learn and know that listening to us is the best course of action for him. I hope that he will one day know that his life is so much better when he listens to us and is obedient.   

The Holy Spirit gave me the thought, “we spend time with God in a quiet place, we “train,” we study His Word, we pray, so that when we go out into the world and there are multiple distractions that look so enticing to us, we know the better Truth choice.”

We go to church and receive instruction to help us live well in this world. (Church = Our going to a “trainer” who is practiced and knowledgeable.) We take the insights and knowledge we receive and go back to our homes and practice implementing them in our lives daily. We are not very good at this at first. We must practice. We must be intentional about our “training.” We practice in quiet, calm, safe places, like our homes, so that we come to know and trust God’s Word and voice. Then when we go into the world with all its distractions, we know who we are following. We have trained ourselves to trust God’s goodness and Truth. We have trained ourselves to know what God’s voice sounds like since we have practiced and been intentional so when something interesting passes us, that might not be beneficial for us to follow, we know to stay close to and trust our good God.

Our daily “training” is preparation. Our training is reading God’s Word, talking to Him, and sitting quietly listening for Him. Training prepares us for all that we will encounter in our daily lives. Now we will not always get it right but thankfully we serve a loving, forgiving, gracious God. We just need to be willing to admit our mistakes, turn around (repent), and keep following Him.

There’s nothing like the written Word of God for showing you the way to salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. Every part of Scripture is God-breathed and useful one way or another—showing us truth, exposing our rebellion, correcting our mistakes, training us to live God’s way. Through the Word we are put together and shaped up for the tasks God has for us. 2 Timothy 3:16-17 MSG

What makes our dog training worth the money we are spending is us practicing at home and applying what we are being taught. The practicing is essential. If we showed up at training each week and expected all our trainer did to be enough and never practiced ourselves with our dog, our dog would never learn. We would not be applying what we were being taught. We would be expecting results without putting worth the effort to train the desired result.

Too often we hear a good sermon or read a good book filled with godly wisdom and we think that’s nice, but we do not actually take the time, do the work, and be intentional to practice the insights until they become part of who we are.

Exercise daily in God—no spiritual flabbiness, please! Workouts in the gymnasium are useful, but a disciplined life in God is far more so, making you fit both today and forever. You can count on this. Take it to heart. 1 Timothy 4:7-8 MSG

Rather train yourself for godliness; for while bodily training is of some value, godliness is of value in every way, as it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come. 1 Timothy 4:7-8 ESV

Initially it is a lot of work to learn something new but as we practice it become easier and easier.

Even once we learn and establish the good habit we must keep practicing, that which we do not use, we lose.

Practice/training is part of every aspect of life.

We train ourselves with repeated practice.

For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it. Hebrews 12:11 ESV

Keep up the good work! It IS worth it!