One of my followers, Nicole,

, writes a lot about getting out there and trying new things. Her blog is about living life to the full.  One of her newest endeavors is teaching piano (brave soul). http://justliveitblog.wordpress.com/2013/08/06/taking-a-chance-at-tickling-those-ivories/. I won’t ruin the end of the story for you. Just shoot over and pay the good lady a visit.

Her “tickling the ivories” blog got me thinking about my own attitude towards trying new things. By nature I tend to be a “we can’t do that” type of person…an “if you can’t do it right (which means perfect) don’t do it all” type of person. Do you relate?

I have to admit this attitude has held me back in life and certainly in my spiritual growth. For a long time I lived under the mistaken notion that spiritual growth was something that God alone created inside a person. I equated it with going to the beach and getting a sun tan. All I had to do was sit in the Sonlight and “tadah!” I would get a holiness tan.

I thought this had to be the way it worked because after I received Christ I started trying to do holy stuff and I found out I was really bad at it.

So I thought, “Well then I won’t even try. If God wants me good He can just whammy me with his magic whammy wand and I will become good.”

The thing is waiting for the magic Jesus whammy also didn’t work because becoming holy is not just God’s work anymore than it’s just my work. Becoming holy requires a cooperation between God, who is an expert at holiness, and me, who it turns out is an F student in the subject; Or at least I was until I started practicing.  Yep, you read that right. I have had to practice holiness and I have needed Jesus’ help all along the way to get better at it.

When we are first born again we are real novices at the whole holiness thing and to expect that we are just going to start being good at being holy  is like expecting a one month old to be good at skeet shooting. Holiness takes time… and God… and us.

Maybe you are looking at an out of control area in your life right now. Maybe you have no clue how to get victory. Maybe you have tried and you have discovered that you are really bad at fighting the type of battle required to win. That’s all right because God knows how to train you. He will. All you have to do is start practicing your victory. You don’t have to succeed right away. Just start. God will finish.