Training vs. Trying

Jesus said it Himself, “Go into all the world and make Disciples.” Being “a Christian” really means being a Follower of Jesus. That means becoming a Disciple.

In his book, “The Life You Always Wanted,” John Ortberg describes two different ways of approaching our faith: 1) “Trying to follow Jesus” and 2. “Training to follow Jesus.” There is a vast difference between the approaches. I invite you to think about your approach to your faith in light of Ortberg’s distinction.

Both approaches recognize the difficulty of perfectly following Jesus in all that we say or do. In fact, even with our very best efforts, we can never reach the goal of perfection. When we blow it, God’s forgiving love allows us to start over.

When someone says, “I’ll try to follow Jesus,” they set up a rather static process. If what they decide to do works, fine. But if it doesn’t work, they can easily say, “Well, I tried.” They met their commitment, they tried. So what do they need to do next?

Training to follow Jesus is a much more dynamic process. It requires that we look at our faith development in the same way an Olympic Athlete looks at training for the Olympics. It involves recognizing areas of our lives where our God given strengths shine, and then building on those strengths. It requires practice, practice and more practice, until we get better and better and the basics skills become our habit and our lifestyle. And, it also includes asking a coach about better ways to do those basic skills, and following the coach’s advice.

Training to follow Jesus recognizes a life-long process of learning. When we fail Him, we ask what we are going to learn from the failure, and make adjustments in our life. We are free to seek and accept forgiveness from Him and the other people in our lives.

In training to follow Jesus, we can recognize that there are some areas where we still need to grow. We can attempt those expecting that we will have some adjustments to make in our approach. We become learners. The Biblical word for learners is Disciples.

A pianist friend once explained that his best piano teacher distinguished a good pianist from a master pianist by saying, “A good pianist will practice until he can play the piece correctly. A Master Pianist will practice until he cannot play it incorrectly.”

Isn’t the Christian life the same way? We can be good, or we can become masters of the life Jesus calls us to live.

There is a satisfaction and a peace that comes with mastery. Wouldn’t you love to find that peace? Are you training to find it, or just trying?