A long time ago I read a story about a man attending the concert of a famous violinist. He was booked in the same hotel as the man with the fiddle, and as it happened, in the room next door. He was excited because he thought he would be the recipient of a free concert. After all, the walls were thin. What he heard in the hours before the evening’s performance, though, wasn’t too exciting. It was just a bunch of scales. And more scales, and then some more.

The-man-next-door was wondering about the upcoming recital—had the crowd paid a bunch of money to hear repetitious meanderings in the key of F sharp? He hadn’t practiced his classical pieces. But of course, the good musician knew the key to a good performance: a focus on the fundamentals. The crowd was pleased as the musician delivered a fine classical performance.

I see this same thing applied in baseball. The key to improving performance is not a lot of scrimmage time, but instead, a lot of drill time. Playing the game is a lot of fun, but you will never play the game well until you have the basics down.

My son plays short stop in Little League, and though he is a good ball player, occasionally he takes a quick pause or a step before fielding from short to first. This is a pretty basic sin of fielding grounders on the infield and one that needs correction. The only way to get rid of this habit is to drill: charge, scoop, fire; charge, scoop, fire; charge, scoop, fire. This is fundamental to the game.

At this level of baseball, a short stop will often make the out at first base even with a hesitation (and everyone will cheer…), but it is a bad idea not to correct the form now. Drills create good habits, so that the body automatically does what it is supposed to do. When making the play is a matter of a second, you don’t have time to think about your form. It has to be second nature. The ball needs to be in the first baseman’s glove as soon as possible. A half of a second can be the difference between being safe and being out. The way to get that immediate response is through drills, which of course, aren’t as fun as playing a scrimmage. Guess what McGregor will practice in the cul-de-sac before tonight’s game.

The reason I was thinking about this is because I had a conversation about the gospel this week. We are sinners, but Jesus died for us. We can have eternal life if we believe in Him. But, as is often the case, a lot of my thinking and blathering has to do with anything and everything but the basics. Yet the fundamentals of the gospel have everything to do with how we play the game, or such as it is, do life.

My faith triumphs and suffers along with my emphasis on the fundamentals. Have I been forgiven? If so, can I forgive others as God has forgiven me? Knowing something, I’m finding out, is not the same thing as believing something. It is fun to play semantics and dissection, but at the end of the day, what I need to know is that fundamentally and objectively that God is all the things He said. Some people look pretty good in a uniform but can lack the very basics of what the game stands for—loving God and our neighbor. It’s funny, because I’m all about learning a trick move when I am not even good at the basic ones.

Fundamentals have everything to do with how well we field the stuff life throws. We must get the gospel right if we intend to get how to live out the gospel right. Jesus took our sins so we don’t have to. This isn’t rote or boring. This is good news and basic to our understanding of what this crazy world means.