Saturday, January 22, 2011

Kick-off Sunday 2 p.m.

Chicago Bear fans – who comprise just about the entire Chicago metropolitan area – are surging with excitement about this Sunday’s NFC Championship playoff game against the Green Bay Packers.  Indeed, news broadcasts all week have been focused on this momentous event, discussing everything from scalping tickets to boycotting cheese in support of a Bears victory.  One news feature about the Bears players themselves was entitled “How to Best Prepare for the Big Game.”  Four days before the game?  Ummmm, if you aren’t prepared yet, it is a bit too late!

There are some “big games” in life that we see coming on the horizon, things that we know that we SHOULD prepare for.  But there are also those vital and immediate “play-off games,” when so much hangs in the balance and are quite suddenly standing at your front door.  How to best prepare for the crises?  I know no better way than training for it, not just the week of the “big game,” or the night before when panic sets in, but daily training in good times and bad --  spring training, so to speak, to prepare for that possible or even improbable Super Bowl of life.  The best way I know is:  Every day, read God’s Word and pray, developing your relationship with the God who loves you, so that when times are great, you acknowledge His hand… and when the hard times come, you are not just crying out for Him but you KNOW He is there.  You are always in training.

And as the theme song goes, “Bear down, Chicago Bears, make every play clear the way to victory.”

“You girded me with strength for the battle.”

                      Psalm 14.39

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