WHAT DO YOU DO IF YOU DROP THE BALL?

From THE LID-COLLABORATION FOR CHANGE ...

With College Football just around the corner I can feel the excitement build. It represents so much more than a game, College Football means a fresh start, a new year, a reunion with friends, and a deep loyalty to your favorite school. So many people I talk to love this time of year, including my Wife. I would have to admit, I’m pretty geeked up for the season to start as well. Whenever we watch football there is nothing that irks us more than when our team throws an interception or fumbles the ball. But have you ever noticed how much more lenient coaches are with interceptions versus fumbles? They expect their players to hold on to the ball. But the reality is we all drop the ball once in awhile. So it isn’t a question of whether or not we will ever fumble, it becomes a question of what to do when we do drop the ball. Here are 3 suggestions:

1. Recover: Try to make up for your mistake. Don’t just lay on the field with your head in your hands, try to fix what you did wrong. Do everything you can to stop the mistake from getting worse. If the enemy recovers your fumble you have to stop them from advancing the ball and magnifying the mistake in your life.

2. Admit: Don’t run over to the sidelines and start making excuses as to why you dropped the ball. Don’t start pointing fingers at him or her and blame shifting. Admit you dropped the ball, accept responsibility, and own up to your mistake.

3. Grow: Learn from your mistake. Listen to the coaches in your life on how you can prevent yourself from dropping the ball again. Heed instruction, gain knowledge, and seek wisdom. Reflect on why you dropped the ball and come up with a game plan that you can execute to help prevent you from dropping the ball in the future.

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CAN GOD MAKE A ROCK SO HEAVY EVEN HE CAN'T LIFT IT?

From Jared Wilson's blog THE GOSPEL-DRIVEN CHURCH comes this important reminder on communicating the Gospel. - Steve

Can God Make a Rock So Heavy Even He Can't Lift It?

I remember when I first heard this bit of immature atheistic reductio ad absurdum. I was in high school, and I didn't respond to it because the Nirvana-shirted, long-banged drama stud who said it didn't say it to me. He was laying it on his friend like it was theist's kryptonite.

My answer then, steeped in C.S. Lewis as I was, would have been along the lines of the nonsense of the question as framed. It is a rhetorical and hypothetical "gotcha" with no sincerity behind it, and in any event, it is sort of like asking, "Does the number nine smell red or yellow?"

My answer today is different. My answer today would not be to skewer the nature of the question but to inject its insincerity with the sincerity of God and all the weight of the gospel.

The truth is that God did make a weight so heavy he couldn't lift it. He did so not by building an immovable force -- we did that with our sin -- but by incarnating the frailty of humanity and willingly subjecting himself to the force. As one of us, yet still himself, he created the conundrum of the incarnate God, bearing a cross he both ordained yet could not carry by himself, becoming condemned in death and also victorious. And God was crushed according to the plan he himself projected from the foundation of the world.

So, can God make a rock so heavy even he can't lift it?

Yes. And he did. For three days only. And then he drop kicked it out of the mouth of the tomb.

THE WISDOM OF CHURCH SIGNS

I am a collector of church signs and these are some that can prompt some great discipleship reflections. - Steve