Tennis and Jesus

I love tennis.
It's a fabulous sport. I grew to love it living here in Kenya, where we don't get NFL. Because if we did get NFL, I probably would never have taken up watching tennis.
Kenya is a soccer country. That probably doesn't mean much. I mean, pretty much ever country outside the US is a soccer country. This means everyone in Kenya has a team, which usually belongs to the UK. Arsenal. Manchester United. Chelsea. Whenever a game is on, we hear people cheering in the neighborhood.
And kids want to be soccer players when they grow up. When I was teaching, there were so many who wanted to be “a famous footballer”.
But something about tennis caught my fancy. When I was in high school, my dad would pick me up from school and I would go with him to the community college where he was taking aviation classes. I would sit around outside and do my homework. There were tennis courts, so I would sit and watch people play. I love the way it's played. And the rules. And the sounds that the players make. To me, it's like a ballet. I would love to be good at tennis. Which is a fanciful flight at best, because I've never played.
That's right, I have never, not once in my life, played tennis.
The closest I've gotten is the intense rule-heavy badminton that we play here on the compound. I used to be good at that, but I'm out of practice.

I've been reading C.S. Lewis's Mere Christianity. It's probably the best book I've ever read on the topic, and quite the definitive work on what it means to be a Christian. It's changed the way I look at God and, more profoundly, myself.
There's one particular section where Lewis talks about Christian behavior. He likens the virtues we are to cultivate to a sports figure, which I find intensely appropriate.
So many times I have heard people harp about Christianity, complaining, “It's just a bunch of do's and don'ts. I thought being a Christian was supposed to free you. What are all these rules about?”
But rules are good-- not because they tell us what to do and not do, but because they help us to become the type of person God wants.
Let's say I decide today that I want to become a great tennis player. No matter how long I think about becoming a great tennis player, I never will be unless I do several things:
1- I need to know how to play the game. I can read the rule books. I can study the court schematics. I can watch lots of games of tennis played by professionals- people who are as good as I want to be. In fact, I can even learn from people who are not that good, because they're still more experienced than I am and I can learn from their mistakes as well. In order to be good, I need to know about the sport.
2- I need to have a coach. Without a coach I will never be a truly magnificent player. I need a coach who knows the game tons better than I do, and who is himself a good player. A coach will teach you how to do things the right way. Learning a move the wrong way will be disastrous to my skill, and will take infinitely more effort to correct once I recognize the error. A coach teaches you to do things the right way, keeps you going when you don't feel like continuing, and helps you to keep from getting hurt.
3- I need the right equipment. No matter how much effort I put into it, I will never be a great tennis player if I insist on using a baseball bat. Nor will I be great if I wear football pads. Or ice skates. I need tennis shoes. A tennis racket. A real court to play on. I'll never learn to be great at tennis if I play on gravel or wearing cleats.
4- I need to practice. As much as I learn about my sport, I will never get better if I don't apply the things I know. This might be the toughest part of all. I need thousands of hours using the right equipment, playing on a real court, making the right moves that my coach taught me, remembering the moves of experts. I need to practice following the rules. Serving. Acing. Returning. If I don't practice all these things, I might become a great server, but whenever my opponent scores a point and has to serve, I will lose the game because I didn't practice returning. In addition, I need to practice outside of matches, otherwise I will never get better. If the only time I ever play tennis is when I'm competing-- when it counts for me to play well, I'll quickly get discouraged, because I didn't put in the time when I wasn't getting tested.
Believe it or not, the same works in my Christian walk. I need all the same things in order to become the type of person that God wants me to be, and remember what Lewis tells us: “We might think that God wanted simply obedience to a set of rules: whereas He really wants people of a particular sort.”
When I read the books of Paul, or listen to good expository sermons, study the lives of heroes of the faith, and allow myself to be mentored by strong believers who have the skills I want to cultivate, I am learning about the game. I'm studying Christianity, finding its quirks and investigating the nuances that make it unique. I am familiarizing myself with the playing field, so that when the time comes for a match, I am well-prepared.
And by watching these players, I will begin to notice that they have certain qualities (equipment) that equip them uniquely for their service. Faith. Truth. Righteousness. Readiness. Peace. Scripture Knowledge. Compassion. Leadership. Hospitality. Each person has his strength, just as each tennis player has his unique specialty, but needs to be well-versed in all areas.
I play the guitar medially well. But I am not getting any better. This is because when I play, I stick to songs I know, and don't learn any new chords or strumming techniques or finger-picking patterns. I am comfortable with what I know. Learning new chords hurts my fingers, and stretches my brain more than I want when I am relaxing.
If, in my Christian walk, I want to become a better Christian, I need to stretch myself. I can't just stick to what I know. If I only keep focusing on building my Scripture knowledge but do not apply it and live in faith, truth, and righteousness, always “ready to give an answer”, I do myself only harm by creating a purely cerebral faith.
In this manner, the Holy Spirit guides me. I know what I'm good at. He tells me to practice the things I'm not so good at so that I become a whole Christian, not just one that does my service and goes to church, but cannot defend my faith from those who would attack it. The Holy Spirit is my coach: the counselor that Jesus refers to. He is what keeps me going when I don't want to, what helps me to do the right thing, and to keep doing the right thing even when it doesn't seem fun or useful. He corrects me, and sets me straight. If I continue to ask Him to help, and to thank Him whenever He does, it strengthens our relationship and brings us closer together, so that His ways become my ways.
And, most importantly, I need to practice my faith. Even when I'm alone, I should cultivate those actions which help me to be a better Christian. Sports coaches say it often takes 1,000 repetitions of doing a move right in order to correct one wrong move.
This is true in our walk also. If we do things wrong on our own, we don't help ourselves at all-- we do ourselves harm. In sports, performing an action even slightly wrong can lead to serious injury. How true also in our spiritual walk! Remember “the way is narrow”. One wrong step can (not always does) seriously damage our spirit. Which is not to say we can't make mistakes, but rather that we should not try to make them.
When the time comes to practice our faith, when Satan attacks us, or others make it their joy to trouble us, we will be ready, but only if we practice outside of those times. We cannot use the excuse that we are not gifted in certain areas, because it is all part of the game. One cannot avoid debate simply because she doesn't feel convincing enough. We are called to be ready for anything. Just like in tennis you can't be in a match and say you prefer not to serve. It's part of the game.
So, we must cultivate the virtues of wise living, self control, justice, and fortitude at all times. There is no time when we can choose not to be a Christian, just like a professional tennis player is rarely anything else. The skills we learn from Scripture, from other Christians, from practicing, and from communing with our Coach apply to every aspect of our lives, and there is no happier, nor more difficult life than that which strives always to be more like Christ.