“Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.” – Hebrews 12:1
When I was a child my parents generously paid for me to have piano lessons. I think I was in first grade when I started, and it seemed kind of fun at the beginning. Except pretty soon my parents, in collaboration with the piano teacher, spoiled the whole thing by demanding that I practice every day. That was the pits, interrupting playtime with my friends. At best I practiced the minimum I could get by with to keep them off my back. That went on for several years until my progress at learning piano ground to a halt.
After that I refused to touch the piano even to play Chopsticks, until high school when I became buddies with a guy who was an amazingly entertaining piano player. He could play almost anything, always attracting a crowd. Wow, I thought, if only I could do that! So, for the first time in years I started tinkering with the piano, learning to play a handful of songs from sheet music reasonably well, yet still far from how my friend could perform, his fingers flying across the keyboard. But it did motivate me to practice.
In Malcolm Gladwell’s popular book Outliers he suggests there is a 10,000-hour rule, that to truly master a skill requires the dedication of practicing a minimum of 10,000 hours. To put that in perspective, to put in 10,000 hours of practice over a period of five years would require approximately 5.5 hours per day of practice – every day! Even if I had been obedient to my parents and music teacher I would not have even come close.
Some experts have disagreed with Gladwell’s 10,000-hour theory, and while I am not knowledgeable enough to argue either side, one thing seems obvious to me; for about the same time I became enamored with piano I was also passionate about basketball. Yet I knew instinctively that even if I shot hoops all day, that between my five-foot-seven-inch stature and my mediocre athletic ability I would be lucky to earn the right to suit up. And anything beyond that was simply laughable. Same with the piano, for my friend possessed something I severely lacked just as I did with basketball – God-given talent.
Paul’s version of the 10,000-hour rule goes like this, “Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.” For as I have learned, to live a full, productive, and abundant life, regardless of any God-given talents, demands a lifetime of hard work and practice.