In college, I was in a production of “12 Angry Men.” A few weeks before our show date, I struggled with the lines for my mid-sized part. I just hadn’t put in the time and effort to memorize my lines. A few of the other guys began to complain about me to the director, who was my roommate. He sat down with me one evening and encouraged me to put in the work to master my lines so well that it would shut the mouths of everyone who was complaining. Then he told me something that has stuck with me for over 20 years: “You practice like you play.” The idea came from his days playing basketball in High School. The way you manage yourself in weekly practices will show through in your gameplay. In the play, the effort we put into rehearsal will show through in the show. There is a profound truth in this idea: The way we practice, train, read, learn, spend our free time, and everything else we do during our day to day life will show through in life when it matters most. I believe this applies most to our spiritual life and our relationships.

Our spiritual life is more than just going to church on Sundays or listening to sermons in the car. It refers to all the different practices we engage in to grow and deepen our relationship with God. Praying, reading the Bible, worshipping God, serving our neighbors, caring for the poor, forgiving others, speaking the truth in love, and everything else is training. It helps us to become something more and better than we are before we start. In the same way that lifting weights or running miles every morning will change the makeup of our physical bodies, spiritual training changes our hearts and minds. This is more than just keeping a swear jar to fix our bad language habits. It refers to growing closer to God in an effort to become more like Jesus. Part of the trick to this is that, just like working out, it doesn’t make any difference if we do it once or once in a while. Real growth happens when we train daily (or at least regularly). It also helps to do it in a community, where folks can encourage and challenge us. Slowly growing by inches over the course of months and years is the way to produce significant changes in ourselves.

When it comes to family, I would argue that our spiritual health impacts our relationships directly. The more we invest in our family time, conversing with our spouse and kids, spending quality time, and doing everything else we can do to improve the quality of our relationships, the better our engagements will be when it matters. During times of stress and frustration, my wife and I do better because we have invested time in our relationships. Playing with my kids and talking to them about their lives daily will pay off when they are teenagers and adults. Our relationship health will show up in meaningful ways when it matters if we train and work today and tomorrow and everyday until then. We practice like we play. We grow spiritually every day, and we grow our relationships every day. Inches of progress every day will pay off in miles eventually.