Last night I got to do something that I enjoy so very much. I got to watch my daughter Sydney play softball. I’m absolutely amazed how far she has come in just one year. Sydney is probably the youngest and smallest player on her team but she is by far the quickest. She is on a team this year that has several young players and they played a team last night that looked like giants in comparison. When it was all said and done the lost in a landslide 13-0. What is usually a great joy brought me pain because the other team’s coach was determined to get every single point that he possibly could. Up 10-0 with the game well in hand he continuously kept running his girls around the bases taking advantage of every little mistake that our young team made. One of the final points was scored when one of his players absoloutely leveled our catcher. This coach didn’t even walk over and check on our girl. No apologies. It is just a game in his mind.
Well I must admit that I was becoming bitter as were other parents. One guy behind me called him a pompuous @#$. You get the point. After the game this same coach gathered the girls to pray. I heard another parent say, “Well look at the hypocrite.” I promise you that wasn’t me although I sure thought it. I asked somebody what this guy did and I was shocked when they told me he was a preacher. I was shocked and then I was ashamed. This Christian missed a great opportunity to teach his girls mercy. I know what some of you coaches out there may be thinking but it is so easy for us as believers to miss opportunities to be a witness on the public stage.
I was reading 1 Corinthians 9 this morning when I cam across these verses. 1 Corinthians 9:24-27 (ESV) Do you not know that in a race all the runners compete, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it. Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. 6 So I do not run aimlessly; I do not box as one beating the air. But I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified.
In running the race of the Christian life it is too easy for us to get disqualified. Hey I’ve done it. I have the scars to prove it. No doubt this comes when we place ourselves above God and His plans for us. And when we do this we destroy things that we worked so hard to build up. We must keep ourselves under control because if we don’t then we too may become disqualified.
I beleive that this coach disqualified himself last night. He may have won the game but he lost the war. My guess is that he would have some people that absolutely would never listen to what he had to say when he preached the gospel. What is frightening is that my wife told me on the way out of the field that I would probably do the same thing (run up the score). She is right in that I would be tempted.
I’m thankful that I have a Sunday School class that I teach each Sunday. Please pray that I don’t disqualify myself from this new race I’m running.
I took this one on a boat that I was on. Many of the women but this powder on their faces. This is probably one of my favorite pictures.
These ladies belong to an unreached people group. There is no Christian witness presently going out to this tribe. I just about got trampled in this village when I broke out a bag of candy for the kids.
