A couple weeks ago, I stepped onto the court for a championship game of a local basketball tournament. We had faced our opponent in previous tournaments and every game was tightly contested. During the first half, our team had gotten off to a fast start and quickly built a 15 point lead by halftime. For the first 10 minutes of the second half, we were cruising along with a comfortable 20 point lead. Then for some reason, our team lost focus and our opponents increased their energy. Our shots were falling short, the calls were going against us and pretty soon, our lead dwindled to 3 points with over 2 minutes left. But we were able to remain resilient during the end of the game and re-focused ourselves on the goal of winning the game.
The story I just shared is probably something familiar that every basketball player has been through. Sometimes, we're the team that's trying to fight back only to come up short at the end and gain a satisfying victory. How does it feel being on both ends? One side is pure elation and the other is utter disappointment.
My Christian life is currently mimicking this type of game. My fast start was back in late high school when I committed myself to serving God. I began attending church, going to fellowship, telling others about Christ, and joining various ministries to help serve God. Everything was going well for a few years then other priorities started coming up. My work and career were taking up a lot of my time along with spending time with friends and family. I began to lose focus of God and didn't place being a man of God as a high importance. Throughout this time, it wasn't that I was unaware of my actions; I chose to be selfish and think of my own needs before God's. It wasn't until I took a hard look at where my life was leading and decided it wasn't what I wanted. I needed to re-focus my life on God.
Many people would probably ask why. On the outside, it seemed that I had most of the things that people try to achieve in life; secure job, good friends, and family. But what is the ultimate goal? Being comfortable when I'm older and retired? Having a great family? Having all the material things that I dream about? These are all temporary and not something that you can take with you once you die. But the one thing I realized that was eternal was God. He granted me eternal life when I accepted Him into my life and by doing this; I needed to live by His guidelines in the Bible. This is why I needed to focus back on God because the path I was following would end at some point with death but God's path has a bridge after death to life with Him.
But this is far from the end as it is a lifelong commitment which will result in either pure elation or utter disappointment. In basketball, you will experience both but in God; there will be nothing but celebration at the end.
<< back to index