I enjoy playing sports. As an American boy, I think it was an unwritten rule to grow up playing basketball every time there was an opportunity. Summer breaks were full of trips to school playgrounds to pick up a game of thirty-three or half-court ball. If a friend got a hoop on their garage, even better! Then you don’t have to wait turns. In dire circumstances where no hoop was available, we would throw balls against signs on brick walls. There was no stopping us from playing.
Despite how often I played, basketball was a sport in which I was never really a contender. I’m not a very tall person, I have an ugly jump-shot, and my basketball game included a little more contact than most people enjoy. Needless to say, I was not usually a first pick in pickup games.
When I got hired at my current job, a bunch of the guys played basketball on lunch breaks or after work. We have a gym in the building, so it was really convenient to get a quick game of thirty-three or a two-on-two or three-on-three game going. When I realized this was essentially an unwritten requirement of the job, I knew I had to up my basketball game. The guys I work with would never have made me feel bad for not being good, but I’m ridiculously competitive and can’t stand losing, so it didn’t take long for me to start working on it.
When I think back, it’s actually pretty funny how much effort I put in to getting better. I looked up YouTube videos on better form and would go in the gym on breaks and just shoot free throws to lock that form down. After work if a game wasn’t happening, I would go in and set a number, then play around the world until I could complete that number of times around without missing a shot. After I finished around the key, I would move to around the arch.
On top of the on-the-court practice, I started working out more at home. I found a Men’s Health article that shared Blake Griffin’s work out for building vertical and tore it out and hung it on the wall. I did that workout religiously. I did the same with other workouts designed for growth in areas that would help specifically with basketball. I was slightly obsessed.
I never did get amazing at basketball. But I actually did get noticeably better. A friend who I hadn’t played with in a long time saw me playing at a church camp with a bunch of the leaders and actually came up to me afterwards to tell me how amazed he was at my improvement. I wasn’t a pro, but the work paid off.
I knew I wasn’t good at basketball. I knew I had bad form. I knew there was a lot I needed to work on. Before I could get any better, I had to acknowledge those areas I was falling short, and I had to be willing to address them and work on them to improve. To unlearn the bad form in my shot, I had to put in hundreds of reps of free throws and jump shots. To make myself a contender for rebounds, I had to focus specifically on building my vertical. To work on explosive cuts in the paint, I had to do sprint drills and suicides. I had to see where I was lacking, make a game plan for how to improve, and put in the effort to get better.
The same rules apply for other areas of our lives. Growth is possible, but it means assessing where we are, making a plan to move forward, and putting in the time and effort to change. It’s really easy to feel stuck and feel like things are out of our control. Most times, there really are factors that are out of our control. But there are still many factors that are in our control that we can change. In basketball, I couldn’t control my height, but I could improve my vertical. In a relationship, you may not be able to control the other person, but you can control your own attitude and tact during a conversation or argument. You may not be able to change the fact that you grew up in an underprivileged home and college was never an option, but you can control whether or not you choose to pick up a book and read and continue learning on your own time now.
John 15:1-4 (HCSB) says, “I am the true vine, and my Father is the vineyard keeper. Every branch in Me that does not produce fruit He removes, and He prunes every branch that produces fruit so that it will produce more fruit… Just as a branch is unable to produce fruit by itself unless it remains on the vine, so neither can you unless you remain in Me.”
I love the challenge and the imagery here. The challenge is this: if we are not producing fruit – producing life-giving, healthy, helpful evidence of our relationship with Him, it says He removes us. Claiming to live a life for God is not the same as living a life for God. Claiming to love the people around us is different than loving the people around us. A claim has no action behind it – no “fruit.” But action is “fruit.” The challenge is that our lives should reflect the claims we make.
But the imagery of pruning that comes with the challenge is something encouraging, even if uncomfortable. When you prune a plant, you cut off unhealthy buds to help the growth and health of the plant. It can actually even mean cutting off healthy buds that are smaller to redirect nutrients and growth to bigger buds that will produce more. So this verse is saying, “Hey, your life should reflect the claims you make that you want to serve God, love your neighbors, and be used by God to bring a positive change in the world. And here’s the best part, God will actually help you get rid of the parts of your life that are unhealthy and keep you from that. He’ll even help you prioritize your life and get rid of the good-but-not-great things you spend your time on to maximize the so-good-it-could-only-be-God things in your life.”
Pruning does mean cutting something away, and that’s not always fun. Pruning means taking an honest look at our lives and seeing where the unhealthy habits are, where we’re stuck in our mindset but shouldn’t be, where we’re wasting time and energy on something we like but that is ultimately going nowhere, where we’re holding on to ideology because it benefits us but doesn’t benefit anybody else. Then it means allowing God to cut that thing away from us so that we can grow into healthier, fuller, more productive versions of ourselves.
Where do you believe God wants to take you in the future? Do you know? Have you prayed about it? Where are you now? What’s in the way of that future? What can you do to step in line with that future and close the gap?
The change is possible. Allow God the space to show you where the change is needed, and be humble enough to accept it. You don’t get better at anything in the natural without seeing the shortcoming and working to change it. It isn’t any different spiritually, except that spiritually, you have God helping you through the process.
The Endeavor 