Don's Devotionals: Learning to love God

Proverbs 16:22a  Understanding is a fountain of life to those who have it,

Mistakes – Errors – Goof-ups – Bad judgments – Blunders.  They sure are all part of life.  In sports they would be called fumbles, strikeouts, errors, interceptions, turnovers, holding, off-side, interference, wild pitches, yellow cards, red cards, etc…  A very important principle applies to both categories (life and sports): when these things happen, the ‘game’ goes on – it doesn’t stop.

Continuing the sports comparison, our error or wild pitch or yellow card might cost us the game but losses are part of sports as well.  In the major league sports I recall only once has a team gone undefeated throughout the entire season and won the championship (1972 Miami Dolphins).  Think about that: losing is normal – it’s a fact of life.

Losing is easier to take when we do our best and our efforts are error free.  Our opponent simply was better.  It’s harder when we believe we are the better team or the better player and we lose because of our mistakes.  The issue is learning do better – to improve – to make fewer mistakes – to learn from our mistakes.  Remember the adage “practice makes perfect”?  It has a much greater chance of being true if we recognize where we need to improve and practice doing it correctly.

A good memory I have is going to see our then 9 year old granddaughter Gabi’s soccer game.  The game ended in a 1-1 tie.  A few weeks earlier the opponent had beaten Gabi’s team 5-1.  On this day, Gabi’s team outplayed them except for the final score.  It was exciting to see how her team has improved. [Side point – I’m sitting here laughing because I just remembered the time when our oldest sons were little and playing soccer.  During one of their games we happened to look at our goal and there was no goal keeper!  Then we saw him behind the net picking dandelions!!!]

The Lord has given us His Spirit, Scripture, grace, mercy, forgiveness and a new life freed from the power of sin. They all are active ingredients in His provision for us to improve – become more Christ-like – live more error free lives.  He enables us to put our confidence in Him and participate wholeheartedly in life – to not get side-tracked by our failings.

Thankfully Jesus enables us to see our shortcomings and learn to from them.  We cannot stand around and mope about our mistakes, or when we fall short.  He enables us to get over it and stay focused on Him and stay involved.  Because of Him we are able to win even in life’s losses.

Matthew 13:16 But blessed are your eyes because they see and your ears because they hear.

Years ago a friend of ours named Paul bought a home that had been through a fire.  He was good at construction and was able to do most of the work himself.  The plumbing had to be redone for most of the house so he had a plumber friend come and handle all of that.  When the plumber was about finished he came to check out his work.  Paul was amazed by what happened.

As they were walking down the stairs into the large basement, the plumber stopped.  He asked Paul, “Do you hear that?”  They were both quiet and Paul didn’t hear anything.  The plumber said it’s over there and pointed toward a corner of the basement.  Paul asked him what was over there.  His friend said, “A leak” – as he motioned with his finger the timing of the drips.

Sure enough, when they got to the corner, behind a bunch of stuff, there was the leak.  Drops of water were falling to the floor at a frequency just like the plumber had indicated.  Paul asked him why he (the plumber) could hear them while Paul couldn’t.  The plumber responded, “This is my business.  I have my ears trained to hear such sounds.”

Typically, today’s verse is thought of in terms of recognizing or understanding God’s truth.  But today, let’s consider our lives to be the plumbing system of the house and the leak(s) to be the sinful behaviors that we allow to encroach into them.  (We can develop ‘leaks’!)

In difficult, stressful times it seems our blindness and deafness can increase regarding negative behaviors and responses in our lives.  We can get so overwhelmed by our circumstances that we lose sight of the stuff growing in our lives that is incompatible with our faith.  We have ‘leaks’ and don’t know it – and those leaks cause real problems for us and those around us.

No matter how overwhelmed we might feel, let’s stop to seek the Lord and ask Him to open our eyes and ears and enable us to see and hear the ‘leaks’ in our lives; and enable us to repent and repair them.  In difficult times, we can be ‘deaf’ to things in our lives that in quieter, less stressful times would not likely occur.  Remember, the more difficult the situation we find ourselves in, the greater is our opportunity to glorify Jesus with how we respond.

When the difficult times end, we will look back.  Hopefully it will not be with eyes of regret.  We have such opportunity to live righteously in the midst of difficulty.  I often think of Esther and Mordecai…”for such a time as this.”