I’ve been singing Christmas songs for the last 6 months and not necessarily by choice. Christmas songs are great in the month of December, but singing them in May is a little different. Every night at bedtime my three-year-old daughter Mya insists on singing Go Tell It on the Mountain. Ever since the kids Christmas program at church, it’s been one of her favorite songs. Some nights I’ll gently ask her if we can sing something else other than a Christmas song, but she loves the routine and a song she knows really well now. Hearing the same song every day has helped her master the lyrics.
I’ve been thinking a lot about the word “repetition” this week, and it seems to be showing up in a lot of areas in my life. As we approach the end of the school year, in my classroom I have my students practice our objectives many times to master the content. This repetition comes in the form of review games, study guides, practice assignments, and other review activities. Practicing our vocabulary every day helps my students master the content.
This last week’s sermon was about a ‘wee little man’ named Zacchaeus. I have a lot of memories on this classic Bible story. The first is singing the Sunday School song in my childhood home church basement with an overhead projector transparency. The second, being at Inspiration Point, I did a monologue skit as Zacchaeus one summer for thousands of campers. I spent hours practicing, memorizing, and performing the skit over the course of the summer. Rehearsing the lines of the monologue every day during staff training helped me master the skit.
One of the first songs I memorized on piano was the great hymn “Come Thou Fount”. I love the final lines of the song which say: “Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it, Prone to leave the God I love. Here’s my heart, Lord, take and seal it, Seal it for Thy courts above.”
These lyrics recognize our human nature to wander and forget, hence the need for repetition. What does this look like for your faith? If repetition helps our kids learn songs, my students master classroom content, or memorize skit lines, maybe it’s also how God shapes our hearts. Faith isn’t always the big, one-time moments, but it’s oftentimes formed in the steady, daily returning. The same prayers. The same scripture verse. The same songs. The same reminders of who God is and who we are in Him.
So what might it look like this week to lean into that kind of repetition? Maybe it’s choosing one verse and coming back to it each day. Maybe it’s starting or ending your day with the same simple prayer. Maybe it’s worshiping with a song that keeps pointing your heart back to God when you start to wander.
Because we are prone to wander, here’s the challenge today: return again. And tomorrow, return again. Let the repetition of small, faithful steps draw your heart closer to the One who never wanders from you.