From the Piano to the Finish Line

My sweet grandson Parker playing the piano

I have been reminiscing about those crazy yet wonderful years of home schooling my kiddos when they were younger and teaching piano lessons at the same time to finance it. Teaching three children of different ages and abilities is challenging enough, but trying to keep the house clean every day before students arrived, and enduring the hours of sitting next to the piano bench while student after student would pound out their masterpieces for me as I helped prod them along amounted to an unbelievably stressful season in my life. It wasn’t always fun!

A few of my students were such a delight to teach, however, that I especially looked forward to their arrival each week. Seth, I’ll readily admit, was my favorite student of all. He seemed to excel way beyond any of my other students, and I could see such potential in him as a musician. What I realized that set him apart from the rest was that he was one of the few that consistently practiced. Every week, I gave him assignments, and I could always count on him to return the next week having mastered whatever I gave him to do.

As he kept a record of his practice schedule, I could see that he rarely ever missed a day of practice. Even if he only had fifteen minutes, he made sure he put in his time consistently. Most days, he played for only thirty minutes. That really was not a lot of time at one sitting, but because he was faithful to play daily, the time added up to some amazing progress. The key is that he understood that the discipline of consistency was more significant to his success than the amount of time he practiced.

Shall I talk about a handful of my other students? Oy vey! Some of them either tried to cram all of their practice time into one or two settings in order to claim all the assigned minutes, or they neglected to practice at all. I stressed the importance of short daily sessions over long spread out ones, but each week brought the same excuses.

Can I tell you how boring and frustrating some of those lessons became for me? Oh the dread I tried to hide each week! I could not assign new pieces for them to learn because they did not achieve mastery of the current pieces. Each week, they would pound out the same songs over and over again showing very little improvement. However, I knew it was not for lack of ability; rather, it was lack of consistency with practice.

I tried using Incentives occasionally, which sparked some motivation from time to time, but when it came down to the nitty gritty of what it takes to be a proficient musician, those few lacked the desire or the discipline to make it happen.

Similarly, when I was in college, I was a music education major with an emphasis in vocal music. To train my voice, I was required to practice a minimum of ten hours per week, and that did not include rehearsal time and performances with a vocal ensemble and a choir I was in. I learned very quickly that there was no way to fudge my practice time. I had no choice but to learn how to be disciplined and consistent, which would prove to be a very difficult life-lesson for me. I would have “stripped a gear” or severely damaged my vocal chords if I had tried to fit all that time into only one or two days! Or, if I had decided to put in only a portion of practice time, it would have been quite obvious in my performance. My vocal muscles would not have had the strength or the agility to do what they needed to do.

My best friend, Bonita, and me in high school

My best friend, who was also a music major, and I made a profound discovery when we realized how much our study of music paralleled other areas of our lives. For example, we learned how to apply the principles of discipline and consistency that we learned from music to our spiritual lives as well as to other areas of life, such as sports, classes, learning a language or craft, our homes and family, relationships, careers, ministry, etc. We discovered that the principle of a-little-bit-every-day was the most effective way to approach everything we did!

We learned that growth and progress are more pronounced in every area of our lives through smaller amounts of daily, consistent discipline and focus rather than through sporadic bouts of intensity, only to be followed by seasons of complacency. This is especially true in our walk with God. We cannot give Him our best if we allow ourselves to swing back and forth like a yo-yo in our relationship with Him.

The predictable pattern of an immature Christian is too often to have a season in which one experiences intense stirrings of the spirit and becomes gung-ho about everything “God” for a time, and then, like a yo-yo, they swing back into their complacent and apathetic lifestyle. Such instability becomes extremely unproductive and seems to cancel out any progress that was made during the “on” seasons.

This pendulum-like habit can be seen more clearly through practical examples like:

• Joining a gym and working out with a frenzy only to be found on the couch three months later with a bag of chips lamenting how badly we need to get in shape.
• Throwing all of the junk food out of the house and filling the fridge with all kinds of colorful veggies only to have them all rot while we head over to the pizza place for a binge.
• Making it a habit to bring our family to church every Sunday beginning in January only to start looking for excuses to stay home by April.
• Volunteering for every ministry possible in the church, with great enthusiasm, only to quickly burn out and become unfaithful with our commitments. The absences become more and more frequent, and the others involved suffer. Have you ever noticed the empty chairs in any church choir, or the nursery workers missing in action? Case in point!

I think I heard some “Ouches!” When we attempt only extremes, an all-or-nothing attitude, we only set ourselves up for failure. Remember this; moderation in all things, driven by consistency, is the vehicle that will escort us on the road to success.

“And don’t just do the minimum that will get you by. Do your best. Work from the heart for your real Master, for God, confident that you’ll get paid in full when you come into your inheritance. Keep in mind always that the ultimate Master you’re serving is Christ.” Colossians 3:23 MSG

Paul instructs us in Corinthians that living for Christ is like running a race. We must prepare ourselves daily and run to win. Since I am no athlete, I used the piano and voice lesson analogy because it speaks to me more personally. However, the principle is still the same, and it certainly includes applying consistency and discipline to our lives.

“Don’t you realize that in a race everyone runs, but only one person gets the prize? So run to win! All athletes are disciplined in their training. They do it to win a prize that will fade away, but we do it for an eternal prize… I discipline my body like an athlete, training it to do what it should.” 1 Corinthians 9:24-25,27 NLT

I love one of Aesop’s fables that illustrates this principle and Biblical teaching so beautifully, “The Tortoise and the Hare.”

The hare was so arrogant, thinking that he could easily whip the tortoise in a race since he was a much faster runner. His downfall, stemmed in pride, of course, was that he only ran in spurts and then goofed around the rest of the time assuming that he could simply speed to the finish line in plenty of time to win. What he did not realize was that the tortoise was consistently plodding along and doing his best, never relenting even for a moment. As the tortoise crept across the finish line, the hare sank in despair, humiliated by his foolish assumption that he could win with such lousy strategy. The tortoise simple said, “Slow and steady wins the race.”

What a brilliant theologian that turtle was!

So, whether you are playing the piano, singing, learning a sport, working in the church, or just trying to get closer to God, it is all the same.  You will get much farther if you consistently devote just a bit of focused time daily rather than trying to learn it all in one sitting and then giving up when you don’t see the progress you desire.  Just start where you are and keep on going!