Making it to the Team

"Okay, Dylan, you've got to give 150%  of yourself.  Treat every open-gym as if it were the tryouts.  Actually, treat every practice as if it were tryouts.  That's how you show you're worth being picked for the team.  That's how you show you are valuable.  Perform well and they will want you!" 

Gosh...basketball season is exhausting and tryouts are still a week away.  We know it will be crucial for Dylan to make it into the school team this year, so we are pushing him more than ever to perform...that's how you get what you want in this life, right?  You've got to make it happen, otherwise, you get left out...

You've got to show your worth...or else, you get passed on for that promotion, or you don't get into your dreamed college, or you don't get picked to be part of the team, right?

"My kingdom is not about earning and deserving; it's about believing and receiving." These words from my devotional reading this morning (Sarah Young's Jesus Calling) challenged me and deeply convicted me and my way of thinking...

In a world where competition seems to be the only way to win...where performance is the only base to be rewarded...where our worth is measured on what we can and can't do...God stands on the complete opposite side...sending Jesus to tell us: Follow me!

“So I say to you: Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. 10 For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened. Luke 11: 9-10

The contrast between the way to achieve things in the world and the way to be fulfilled in Jesus is stark.  When the world says: your destiny is what you make.  Your efforts determine what you get.  Jesus says: Come to Me...seek Me...be still...trust...see...

He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? Romans 8: 32

Lord...forgive me for getting caught up in the traps of this world.  Forgive me for falling for its alluring and seductive ways.  Forgive me for forgetting that You are the Only Way.

The things that effort, performance and self-reliance can get us will eventually and inevitably fade away.  Dylan might make it to the basketball team and have a brilliant season.  But, years from now, what would that amount to if he does not have God in his life? And, on the contrary, even if Dylan doesn't make it to the basketball team, he will be alright as long as He stays on the path that Jesus has traced for him. The basketball team is irrelevant.  The team that matters, the team into which is crucial he makes it is the one labeled: Children of God...

May we understand this truth as we continue to guide our kids through the path that they should follow.  In Christ Precious Name! Amen!