Practicing Well

Lindsay Schlegel takes a lesson from her children’s piano teacher on practicing the faith with diligence and heart.  

You don’t get better at playing an instrument simply by playing an assigned piece over and over, at the same pace, in full, start to finish. Improvement requires discipline; growth requires diligence. You need to break things down before you can build them back up.

And so if you want to make real progress in music, you will warm up your mind and hands with scales. You will spend time reading the notes on the page to figure out fingering positions or breathing patterns. You will start at a slower tempo than that at which you intend to play the piece at a performance, to get the melody and rhythm down before picking up the pace.

You might use a metronome to keep your counting steady and even. When you locate a trouble area, you will repeat those couple of measures until you land what you’re striving for, then go back and work that section into the whole.

This is all to say there is a difference between practicing and practicing well.

“Practicing” the Faith

Our family’s current piano lesson arrangement means I’m often in the kitchen preparing dinner while our children receive instruction on the instrument that sits in our adjacent living room. I have the opportunity to listen in, and while I still can’t eke out more than “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star,” I have learned something I can bring to prayer.

The kids’ teacher puts an emphasis on practicing well. Not many people learn to practice properly, he believes, and without proper practice, it’s tough to make good progress. Playing the piano and practicing the piano are two different things, as illustrated above.

Consider this in terms of our “practice” of the Faith. We all fall into ruts at times, for one reason or another. It’s all too easy to find ourselves checking prayer off a list in a busy season and not putting enough time and reflection into our efforts at contemplation. We know what to do, and we do it, even if there is some niggling voice in the back of our minds that wonders if we’re doing anything more than going through the motions.

Reviewing Our Methods

If your prayer life feels stagnant, you might ask yourself whether your methods are appropriate to your current station in life. Perhaps seasons of life have shifted and your spiritual practices would benefit from a revision. Are you really engaging with God as profoundly as we have the opportunity to do?

Taking a few deep breaths to still your body and mind can do the work of scales to “warm you up.”

The practice of lectio or visio divina can be like deciphering the notes on the page to internalize the melody and rhythm of conversation with the Lord.

Adoration, even for a few minutes a week, can give you the opportunity to lay your troubles at the Lord’s feet or wrestle with those temptations to sin that keep tripping you up.

Sometimes we need a guide like a Bible study or a spiritual director — analogous to that metronome — to help us stay on track.

Authentic prayer is not repeating memorized prayers with no further engagement. If we want to advance in our spiritual life, if we want to deepen our personal relationships with Christ, we need to make a practice of settling into the presence of the Lord even when things seem hectic, even when it seems we don’t have the time.

It’s not all on us, of course. We can’t forget that we love because He first loved us. We can pray because He gives us the graces to do so. With His mercy and charity, may our prayer be a joyful song in thanksgiving and praise to the Lord, and by our example, may our children learn to do the same.

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Copyright 2026 Lindsay Schlegel
Images: Canva