LIFE'S A CURVE BALL

A young man shopping in a supermarket noticed a little old lady following him around. If he stopped, she stopped. Furthermore she kept staring at him. She finally overtook him at the checkout, and she turned to him and said,

'I hope I haven't made you feel ill at ease; it's just that you look so much like my late son.'

He answered, 'That's okay.'

'I know it's silly, but if you'd call out 'Good bye, Mom' as I leave the store, it would make me feel so happy.'

She then went through the checkout, and as she was on her way out of the store, the man called out, 'Goodbye, Mom.'

The little old lady waved, and smiled back at him.

Pleased that he had brought a little sunshine into someone's day, he went to pay for his groceries.

'That comes to $121.85,' said the clerk.

'What?! How come so much? I only bought 5 items!'

The clerk replied, 'Yeah, but your Mother said you'd be paying for her things, too.'

Life’s a curve ball. You never really know what to expect or where it’s going to go. You can’t really predict a whole lot with a whole lot of certainty much of the time. And it seems like it’s getting even harder all the time. In fact, I’m sure it is. That makes it pretty difficult when you’re making a sincere effort to meet things head on!

So, HOW DO you hit a curve ball?

Practice. There is no substitute for it. And how does that translate into the rest of life? Well, I have a few thoughts. I think that God wants us to be more aggressive sometimes rather than just passive. I know we usually think of faith as a passive thing, but I have been thinking about David the shepherd boy who became a king. It says that when he went out to meet Goliath, he ran towards that mountain of a man.

There is an element of aggressiveness in the whole concept of practicing. When we practice, we aren’t just waiting for life to come at us, we are preparing for it. Rather than just waiting to see what will happen and taking what comes, it would seem that there is a real need to be as prepared as possible. We call it being ‘proactive’. It is also significant that when Saul (the guy who probably should have been taking on the giant) questioned David about his abilities, David cited his experience with both a lion and a bear. And I’m thinking that when he let go with that sling of his it wasn’t the first time he had thrown a rock!

Now, David made it really clear that he was trusting in God the whole time. But trusting in God is not a passive thing and I guess that’s my point. God calls us into the fray and He certainly expects us to be as prepared as possible, all the while putting our trust in Him and not in our own abilities.

So how do we ‘practice’ for what the future holds? The answer lies in the present. If I think that I can live my days with a kind of laissez-faire attitude and then somehow just suddenly be ready in the future for whatever comes I am deceiving myself. Every day in the life of a Christian is like a day in training camp. The battles of the future are being won right now if I will allow God to be my trainer. It is the only hope we have of handling what life might some day throw at us.

Here’s a question for you: What are you doing today to make sure you are ready for the challenges of tomorrow? Because be assured of this - they are coming.