When I was a lot younger and played football, basketball, baseball and all sports in between, practice always began with drills involving the fundamentals of the sport and our position. In football, I blocked a hundred dummies for each person i blocked, working on my form. Each practice session of going through our plays for the week began with off-tackle right. The most basic running play in the book. In basketball, you shoot free throws until your arms fall off, and each practice begins with lay-up drills. I could go on and on. No matter how much one masters their craft, each practice, each day, begins with fundamentals.
Each year during Lent, we go back to the fundamentals. We concentrate on the basics of our faith – prayer, meditation, sacrifice, and study. We learn just like seasoned athletes that when we face a complex problem or an intimidating opponent the fundamentals never leave us, and they carry us through those moments when we seem to have no answers.
During Lent we work on the basics. We begin each day by allowing God’s love to saturate every fiber of our heart, mind, soul, and strength. It is where we begin, and our “off-tackle-right,” is prayer. We listen and communicate with the one being who can always guide us through whatever we face. When we return to the fundamentals and basics in our faith, always begin with prayer.
“But whenever you pray, go into your room and shut your door and pray to the Father who is in secret; and your father who sees in secret will reward you.—Matthew 6:6.
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