My brother-in-law is a marine, and he served in Iraq and Afghanistan. He once told me that they would sometimes face an odd challenge when they would experience their first time in firefights. Some soldiers would collect their spent brass in the middle of combat. It seems weird, until you recognize that, in the intensity of those situations, fight-or-flight kicks in and folks replay what they did in training. This includes collecting their spent brass after they finished shooting. It’s a crazy reality that however we train is a strong indication of how we will act when difficult situations arise. The higher the quality of our training to deal with life, the better the outcome we will experience. The more training we do, the more likely we are to follow our training when it matters most.
One of my mentor pastors often talks about how people believe that they can simply try hard when the moment of truth arises in order to accomplish their goals. He would say: Training will always win out over trying hard. Whether it’s running races, making the right decision when it counts, reacting to our anger appropriately, controlling ourselves in the face of temptation, working hard to accomplish our goals in life, or any other aspect of life, training is always superior to trying hard.
In reality, regular training as a part of our daily lives is the very definition of trying hard. It is storing all of that effort for the future. So, essentially training is trying hard.
In our day to day life, training towards being a righteous person is what the Bible calls discipleship. Discipleship involves spending time with a more mature follower of Jesus and learning how to live by learning from them and imitating their example. Surrounding ourselves with people with the same mindset and lifestyle as we are trying to attain. In doing so, we establish a training routine and surround ourselves with trainers. Paul instructs Titus to structure the church in this way: pairing older men with younger men and older women with younger women for the purpose of training them toward righteousness.
In addition to that type of structure, training involves learning, studying, and by applying His word. This daily training reshapes our minds a little bit at a time. Paul explained to Timothy that: “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.” Studying and reflecting on scripture is training that reshapes us a little at a time. We rewrite the programming in our thinking in small increments, gradually becoming what we were created by God to be. This can be accomplished best by training.
In turn, God works through that training and our deepening relationship with Him to make us into new people, who naturally act according to wisdom and righteousness.
