Growth

While I was practicing one day I remembered that my teacher had (the day before) corrected something that was wrong about what I was playing. So I tried what he told me to do. I changed the way I was practicing and by doing that I was able to fix the problem that he said was wrong.  Shortly after that I realized something very interesting.

As musicians we have private lessons every week, our teacher hears us play and he/she tells us what we can do better, and (if you have a good teacher) tells us how to make it better. So in our day to day practice we change what we're doing to fix the problem that our teacher pointed out to us. In that way we grow to be better musicians and play our music better.

Likewise, as Christians we go to church every week, we hear a sermon preached from the pages of scripture. This sermon is teaching what the Bible says and shows us how to live a more godly life. So in our lives the week following we should change the way we're living. We shouldn't leave the church building that Sunday and live our lives that next week exactly the same way we did before! We need to change the way our lives are, the way we do things, the way we treat other people and the way we commune with God.

But our growth shouldn't only be once a week, we should be changing on a day to day basis. As violinists, we practice every day.We don’t just go to our lessons once a week and expect to get better.  We have to make an effort daily to get better.  Striving for perfection. As Christians we read our Bibles every day, we study His word, enjoy His Creation. We are striving each day to become more Christlike. So every day we should be growing and changing. That is really how we improve our skills and become better Christians.

So in order to grow as musicians and Christians we need to change the way we live, the way we do things. Nothing will happen if we don't do anything different. We have to realize that in order to grow, and get better we have to practice right. This is how we get to be better musicians and to be better Christians.