Over the weekend, I went with our family to my 7 year old grandson's "Little League" baseball game which happened to be during a very warm and rather oppressive late day time slot. By the end of the game, as we were walking back to the cars, a piercing outburst began to take place between a couple of the "coaches" (read fathers of the kids) who were clearly and rather violently upset about some sort of philosophical perspective about how the game was being played. This was no minor disagreement but literally was coming to physical blows before others broke up the two dads and pushed them away from each other.
I had to chuckle because that same passion has been around sports all of my life and continues to seem to be impossible to "control" even with 7 year olds all around.
This reminds me of the fact that "sin is always crouching at our door" as the scripture says and even in circumstances where we think we should easily be under control, we're not. We need to be fully yielded to who Jesus wants to be in our lives so that such situations just don't happen. In today's reading in Oswald Chambers "My Utmost For His Highest," he talks about getting beyond "self-interest" and to the place where pride, self-sufficiency and self-interest have been completely erased.
I know I am nowhere near that place in my life, but watching these two grown men scream at each other reminded me of just how quickly life can get ugly when we chose to hold on to our "self-interest" and not look out for the interest of others.
In the end, the only answer to such pride is surrender to Christ and His plan and purpose in our life. As we all know, this is a daily discipline, not a once only act, and the powerful internal drive to protect self-interest reminds us of that nearly every day.
The good news is that Jesus invites us to "come and see" how He does it every single day. John 1:38-39.
Blessings!
Pastor Jay
P.S. Watch out for those Little League games. . . they can be lethal!
No comments:
Post a Comment