Learning and Practicing

Like with anything, you need to practice Godliness. This is a term I have heard a lot (maybe due to Colin Buchannon). However like with playing the piano, it won't happen unless we practice. I think it is as simple as that. However because being Godly goes against our sinful nature, God's help is a must or we will fail in even the simplest task.

However when I say practice, I mean practice, theory only takes us so far. Practice serving for example. When I was in my late teen years, I wanted to be helpful to the people I cared about. My strength (in case you didn't know) is children. A friend of mine had 3 children (now 4) and she was also helping lead a large bible study group and dealing with depression. She is an amazingly Godly person who leans more and more on Gods strength in humility. She is a joy to be around and a pleasure to learn from and to serve. Unfortunately I did not know how. I am not a person who can easily barge into a persons house and do things for them. That would be counter productive anyway, they would probably get the wrong idea or you would do something they didn't find that helpful to do.

My friend allowed me to visit her often and would thank me for playing with her children while she did jobs or went shopping. This encouraged me to practice offering help, baby sitting or washing up or folding washing or whatever. She was humble enough to accept the offers from me and about half the other single women in the church.

As a result of practicing on my friend, now I have learnt to offer specific help, not generic help. For example, "would it be helpful for me to watch your children while you go to the shops and do the little annoying jobs" rather then "if you ever need help with anything, just ask". I have also learnt to see things that I can do, like the washing up.

For people being served, look on it as an opportunity for you to practice grace and thankfulness and for them to practice serving. Encouraging them by saying thankyou is also helpful. One thing I struggled with for a long time was being brave enough to offer. I wanted to help and serve, I was just shy about offending people, or being told no. My friend would present opportunities to serve, even just running the dishwater and handing a potential server a tea towel would help.

One thing my friend began to do was to actively include people is her life, when they came over she would plunk a basket of washing in front of them and then both would fold and chat. She would take people grocery shopping and have extra hands to hold children's hands. She would encourage people to take children to the park, to read to them, to help her at kindy gym, to wash, hang out, bring in, and fold washing, wash up, dry up, chop vegetables, anything she happened to be doing when they came over, they would do too. This must have taken a huge amount of humility to admit to needing help, but she was serving and training up other people at the same time.

Humility and serving are just two areas of Godliness that need regular practice. They are also practical things so theory doesn't cut it.