Sociologist Daniel Chambliss undertook a multi-year study to better understand what separated swimmers who became Olympic medalists from those who did not. Was it talent? Opportunity? Great coaching? Careful diet? Sleek swim attire? All of these or something else?
The results of the study may surprise you. Chambliss titled his study “The Mundanity of Excellence” because his conclusion was that excellence, such as that demonstrated by a medalist at the Olympics, is pretty mundane. Says Chambliss: “Superlative performance is really a confluence of dozens of small skills or activities, each one learned or stumbled upon, which have been carefully drilled into habit and then are fitted together in a synthesized whole. There is nothing extraordinary or superhuman in any one of those actions; only the fact that they are done consistently and correctly, and all together, produce excellence.”
In other words, successful Olympic athletes could not be distinguished from their less successful competitors by virtue of superior innate ability. The difference between them lay in this: the most successful athletes paid attention to the details of their performance and practiced their best moves over and over and over again – until they had fine-tuned them and could repeat them as second nature. Then when their big Olympic moment came, nothing was left to chance. A near perfect performance could be expected.
When we heard of Chambliss’ study and his conclusion, we began to wonder if the same principle of the mundanity of excellence might apply to our spiritual performance as well as our athletic performance. We often look at outstanding spiritual leaders (we might even call them saints) and suppose they just have more talent for such matters than we do. Perhaps they are naturally more attuned to God’s call, more adept at prayer, more skilled at conveying a needed message, more gifted at offering forgiveness or compassion or hope.
But if outstanding athletic performance bears any similarity to outstanding faith performance, then perhaps the saints are not so different from us. They simply invested a whole lot of energy and practice into perfecting their faith lives. Then, when their moment to perform occurred, they were ready to face the cross, the lions, the scoffers, the doubters, the hungry, the needy, the outcast, or the lonely with an exemplary response. Their years of careful practice prepared them. They had fine-tuned their character and their behavior. They were at peak performance, spiritually speaking, and able to excel as God’s people, when called to do so.
Are you shaping your spiritual life to prepare you for what challenges may lie ahead? True, we may never be called upon to face the extreme challenges that the saints of our faith have sometimes faced. But we will surely be called upon to face at least a few unavoidable challenges such as illness, loss, betrayal, disappointment or grief. How well we perform spiritually in those circumstances may depend on how well we have practiced our faith in anticipation of those trials.
Why not establish a faith regimen? Keep praying, studying, caring and giving until you’ve perfected the exercises of faith. Then you’ll be ready for most anything.
