"It's not about football," my mom has told me countless times, even long after football season has ended.
But that is all she needs to say. I know exactly what she means.
I really don't have a dislike for the sport. I just didn't want to go to a Superbowl party once. And that became an easy excuse.
Satan seems to love throwing excuses our way. Any and every reason to keep us from Christ-like actions. Any and every idea he can plant into our thoughts to turn our focus to ourselves. Any and every justification he can generate within us to prevent us from loving others.
I tend to become angry when I realize I have fallen captive to yet another of these lies. When I realize that I am separating myself from potentially good friends, simply because in my seventh-grade maturity, I think that they don't like me. When I don't take the initiative and talk to someone new, because I see their hair with every strand perfectly in place and compare it to my disheveled and unbrushed mess, and think that they would prefer talking to someone else. When I don't call someone with the reasoning that, if they wanted to do something, they would call me. When I don't invite someone over, because I am embarrassed that I haven't had time to clean up or because I am trying a new recipe and am afraid it won't turn out right.
In giving in to these lies Satan embeds in us, we are preventing God from using us in those situations and in those people's lives.
Because it's not about the football. It is about the relationships.
Loving others means removing our pride. It means overcoming fear and taking risks. It means abandoning all excuses.
And Every Moment Inbetween
-
From the rising of the sun
to its setting,
the name of the LORD
is to be praised.
Psalm 113.3
(The bookends of our days
and every ...
18 hours ago
1 comment:
Our friend Barb sent me a recent devotional from you that I loved (and needed). I asked her for the link and she graciously shared your site with me. Fast forward a month later, and I’m up at 3:30 in the morning, from a dead sleep to a sudden wake where my mind starts going 100 miles an hour, and I want to hear God speak to me. So I remembered this site. Of course I wanted to find the beginning and start where you started. So I scrolled, all the way back to 2009, because that is just who I am. I normally would have read just one, and savored it until the next day. However, I kept going. And then this one. THIS is what God wanted me to hear. After asking Him all day what to do to show love to family, who probably unintentionally hurt me, He wanted me to hear this truth! He answered in the middle of the night. I listened. I’m so grateful that almost 14 years later, this message was used to keep my heart from turning bitter. Thank you for sharing your beautiful gift that He gave you! Love in Christ, Lori
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