Keep Your Eye on the Fruuiiiiiit.

I played soccer as a kid and in high school.  To be clear, I wasn’t very good.   I think the only reason I made the Varsity team as a Freshman was because I had a good attitude and was fearless.  I may not have had the best ball handling skills, but I was willing to fight for a spot on the field (er, bench) and I tried hard.  I realize now that sometimes coach-ability may be just as important as talent. Perhaps even more so. 

I played defense; I was always either keeper or sweeper.  In both of these positions, I would say that my success was dependent upon two things:  my ability to focus solely on the ball and stamina.  And these two things were interrelated.  If I was tired, I’d tried to read the field and guess where the next play was.  And that’s not always a bad idea, it just that I sucked at reading people’s minds.  Or my mind would wander; after all, they’re all the way down the field.  I’d be trying to figure out if Al Murphy was at the game and if my sportsbra was totaling flattening my chest and then crap, how did that ball get ten feet away?  Oh wait, now it’s in the net.

Following God is a lot like that.  This past week has once again shown me that I have absolutely no ability to figure out what God is up to.  He’s sort of like a ninja in that regard.  I’ve been so focused on the adoption, on a particular child, that I forgot that what it was all about in the first place: obediently following Jesus.  I don’t need to try to read the field or see the big picture:  I just need to seek His face.  

Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

Hebrews 12:1-2