I play disc golf. Yes, it's a sport. No, you may not judge me.
There are some pretty amazing courses here in Charlotte, so I get to play without having to travel too far. This year, I decided I wanted to get more distance out of my drives, so I practiced a different grip. Yes, there are different grips. Shut up.
Ever since I started playing, I have used a control grip for everything ... drives, mid-range and putts. That resulted in more control, but less distance. So this year, I'm changing to a power grip. As the name implies, there is more power, but less control.
So I went out to Killborne Park here in Charlotte, and I made the decision to switch to the power grip. And something odd happened...
The third time I went to drive off the tee, mid throw, MY HAND switched from a power grip to the control grip. At first I was surprised, then confused, and then angry. How dare my own hand disobey ME! It's MY hand!
The problem is, that's what I trained it to do. Out of sheer muscle memory, my hand simply did what it has always done. Regardless what I wanted it to do, it was going to try to go on auto-pilot and throw the way I learned to throw. Unlearning is a frustrating process.
I'm convinced the soul has a "muscle memory" too. It's in this place that Christian disciplines like prayer, personal worship and devotional time become essential. If you teach your soul to live with them, eventually they will become auto-pilot. But if you teach your soul to live without them, don't be surprised when your soul argues with you to do something different. And the thing of it is, you can't even really get mad, because it's just doing what you trained it to do...
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