You know the old adage that life is not a dress rehearsal?

I get what it’s saying: This is it! Don’t waste time! Make your one life count!

But to me it also says life has no room in it for practice. For growth. For the humility and dependence of being a beginner and learning by having a go. No room for failure.

It brings with it a huge amount of pressure to get everything right the first time as well as a pervasive sense of inadequacy when we are not “performance-ready” in everything, all the time. (Does it even tell us life is a performance?!)

Imperfection, which is core to our experience of humanity, is an unbearable prospect when there is no room for practice in your approach to life.

It becomes easy to see how people either burn themselves out in a desperate bid to succeed, or do not even try (I seem to have a penchant for both)!

I find the same dynamic applies to following Jesus.

We can put a lot of pressure on ourselves to do everything right the first time, as if a perfect performance is what God is after (I wrote about this kind of approach to the spiritual life here).

Some may consider this appropriate: after all, doesn’t God call us to a high standard of living?

But let me ask you this: what did Jesus expect of his disciples when he was on earth? To start out doing everything perfectly? Or was his approach grounded in providing space for practice so they could grow into the people He called them to be?

There is a clue in what a disciple actually is: an apprentice, a trainee. A disciple is someone who has a go and practices, learning from their teacher and growing by practicing under their guidance.

As we read the stories of Jesus’ life in the Bible we see him taking them on a journey, growing them from clueless beginners to leaders of the church.

His approach was to invite them into a life with Him of growing by having a go. And while he expected them to grow, he did not expect them to be perfect from day one.

And so what if instead of all this pressure we saw our lives of discipleship to Jesus as having a go?

What if we accepted our imperfection and gave our hearts permission to learn and grow as we practice the way of Jesus?

With Him and our friends, we can have a go at cultivating a conversational relationship with God. We can have a go at being kind. We can have a go at speaking up for the powerless. We can have a go at withholding from gossip. We can have a go at bringing life to our neighbourhoods and workplaces. We can have a go at befriending the lonely.

The pressure is off. You are accepted, imperfect though you are. And you are invited to practice.

Your kind Teacher will be there to gently pick you up when you fall over.

What could you have a go at today?

Main image by Jess Bailey.

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