Experience Brings Improvement

I have a student teacher right now in my music classroom.  She is amazing and truly doing a wonderful job.  As I was talking to a friend about her this morning and going on and on about how great she is, I said to my friend, “And you know, the areas she does struggle in are just areas that will become stronger with experience.”  She is simply not comfortable in those areas due to lack of experience.

Sitting at my desk right now, I am reflecting on that conversation and how true that is for all of us, especially in living the Christian life.  We hear a lot about getting comfortable being uncomfortable.  Here is a thought…if we can get comfortable with being uncomfortable will we ever reach a point where we will not feel uncomfortable anymore?

I remember student teaching.  I got to teach in a second grade class and a fourth grade class.  It was a truly positive experience.  But I remember being nervous and uncomfortable to teach in front of the classroom teacher or whoever came in to observe me.  When I got the job I have now teaching elementary music, I was nervous and not completely sure what to do and how to do it.  While I have a degree in music, I did not student teach in a music classroom.  I felt a little thrown to the wolves and not especially confident that I was even doing the right thing.

This is my eighth year teaching, and I can confidently tell you that I would invite any person in to my room to observe me teach.  It does not make me nervous at all anymore.  What once made me uncomfortable is absolutely comfortable to me now.

What made the difference?  Honestly, it was last year when my school got so crowded that I had to go from room to room on a cart!  I felt very vulnerable and very exposed.  I had to be creative because I could not use a lot of the instruments I was used to my students playing on in my lessons.  The teacher often stayed in their classroom, so there was no getting out of having an adult in there watching me teach.  The thing was that this was all completely out of my hands.  I did not have a choice.  If I was going to keep my job, I had to get uncomfortable.

What about in our Christian lives?  How comfortable are we with bringing up Jesus in our daily talk?  How comfortable are we with doing things differently than others?  Things that might draw attention to ourselves?  But don’t you think this should be expected since God called us to be aliens in this world?  In 1 Peter 2, God laid out what is expected of us yet, too often, we live as if those things are a choice.  When we act without having a choice or a say, after a while getting uncomfortable gets easier.

Peter calls us a chosen race, a royal priesthood and a holy nation.  We are not supposed to do things the same as everybody else!  We are not supposed to live comfortably.  He calls us to a life of praising the One who has called us out of darkness. 

When we feel like we have no other choice than to live this life of praise and set apartness, we start to feel more comfortable and we see it as a get to and not a have to.  I have always felt that a lot of believers live the same way, but some see Christian life as a check list and to do list while others see it as a get to.  The Lord looks at the heart.  And He looks at what you make habit and become experienced in.

God calls us to hard, uncomfortable things, but He fully equips us for these things.  Let’s squirm a little out of our comfort zone and it will become more comfortable.  Dare to live and be different.  God made us to live in community and not live a life of nervousness and insecurity.  He allows circumstances to make us stretch and grow and make us better people. 

Student Teaching throws you into the classroom feet first, ready or not.  Life comes at you, ready or not.  It is up to you how uncomfortable your comfortableness can truly be before you start to feel comfortable again.  This is a lifelong process, but experience brings improvement.