Going Through The Process

1 Chronicles 16:11

In 1998, Kobe Bryant of the Los Angeles Lakers, arguably one of the best NBA players of his day, fractured a bone in his right hand during the early part of his third season in the NBA and missed fifteen games. Doctors taped his ring finger to his pinkie to treat the injury. Even though the bone healed, when the splint was removed his fingers were no longer evenly spaced; his index and middle fingers were separated from his ring and pinkie fingers. (Think Mr. Spock’s Vulcan salute.) While visually subtle, Kobe realized the resulting difference in finger placement gave his shots a slightly right-hand spin. This affected his performance; for the rest of the season he didn’t shoot as well as he had prior to the injury.

So during that summer’s NBA off-season, he decided to make 100,000 shots to correct the flaw in his technique. Note this endeavor was not to take 100,000 shots, but to make 100,000 shots. This amounts to making about 600 shots a day over the course of about five months. He says that he never practiced taking shots. He practiced making shots. The result was that the next season his shooting percentage improved. And he led the Lakers to the NBA championship.

I am not much of a soccer fan, but you have to be impressed with the record that Anson Dorrance has as a soccer coach. He has won 21 NCAA national championships in 31 years. This is what he said, “What it comes down to is intense desire. To get this winning edge, you need to build an indomitable will. This means you must be relentless; you must never give up.”

Process and persistence get a bad rap. Hard work, relentless effort, extremely long hours… grinding it out – that is not what people want to hear. They want to know the short cuts.

As I was reading these stories I thought of 1 Chronicles 16:11, “Seek the Lord and his strength; seek his presence continually!”

What if we were to be that as intentional in our efforts to draw closer to God as Kobe Bryant was to shoot baskets or Anson Dorrance was to win soccer games? What if, over the course of a 16 hour a day, we were to make it a point — virtually every minute — to surrender ourselves once again in obedience to Christ and submission to God’s will?