If You Build It They Will Come. But Will They Come Back?

I feel wonderfully blessed to have a wife who understands and enjoys sports. My wife is a huge St. Louis Cardinals fan and an even bigger OU Sooner fan. In fact, we both met while attending the University of Oklahoma. We were both in the marching band. Her family has followed the Sooners as long as she can remember. I think I liked them when I was younger, but I knew when I got to school at OU that I would be a Sooner forever. We both love to watch the Sooners win football games and we both get terribly depressed when they lose. Unfortunately this year, we had to watch them lose in their bowl game against West Virginia. Hopefully next year will be an even better year.

Back to my wife. She is a great sports fan. She even got me a Cubs hat autographed by Ryne Sandberg for my wedding present. By the way, I am a kinda big Cubs fan. I am always proud to tell other guys how lucky I am that my wife likes sports. My wife also loves movies about sports. She loves the movies that tell a great story like The Natural, Miracle (1980 Olympic Hockey movie) and Field of Dreams.

The title of this post really doesn't make any sense because I was going to talk about something that has bothered me at my church, but I really don't think God would find it as a good use of my time. This is what I feel needs to be said tonight.

Tomorrow I will be teaching Sunday school at my church for the first time. There is an excellent chance that it will just be me and my wife, but I think I will try to teach anyways. I am teaching out of a book by John Ortberg called The Life You've Always Wanted. Tomorrow's lesson is about the need to take notice when God is trying to get your attention, stop what you are doing and follow his lead. Just like Moses did when he saw the burning bush and ended up leading the Israelites out of Egypt. I am continually haunted by the thought that every homeless person that I pass by is Jesus waiting on me to take notice and do something. I am even more disgusted with myself because today I was in a gas station buying something to drink for my family. There was a lady sitting down behind the counter closing out her register sobbing. The man who rang me up was standing right next to her. He was obviously affected by whatever was causing the girl to cry, but he stuck to his job as if to give her privacy and hopefully not allow her to disturb any customers. I avoided looking at her. I felt this urge to say something to her like "Is everything OK? or Is there anything that I can do for you? or Can I pray for you?" Instead I tried not to make eye contact and left the store even though my heart was telling me to stop and try to give the woman some sign that whatever is going wrong for her today, God still loves her and there are people in this world who love her too and that things will eventually get better.

Even as I got into the car and told my wife about it, my heart was telling me to go back inside and say something to her. What if today was her last day to live either because she went home and killed herself or because some accident happened to her?

Colossians 3:12 (NLT) Since God chose you to be the holy people whom he loves, you must clothe yourselves with tenderhearted mercy, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience.

James 2:14-17 (NLT) Dear brothers and sisters, what's the use of saying you have faith if you don't prove it by your actions? That kind of faith can't save anyone. Suppose you see a brother or sister who needs food or clothing, and you say "Well, good-bye and God bless you; stay warm and eat well"-but then you don't give that person any food or clothing. What good does that do?

So you see, it isn't enough just to have faith. Faith that doesn't show itself by good deeds is no faith at all - it is dead and useless.

My bible commentary on this last scripture says this, "When someone claims to have faith, what he or she may have is intellectual assent - agreement with a set of Christian teachings - and as such it would be incomplete faith. True faith TRANSFORMS our conduct as well as our thoughts. If our life remains unchanged, we don't truly believe the truths we claim to believe."

It is really easy to sit here in the quiet at my computer and type about how I want to go out and have an impact on every person I come in contact with, but as soon as I walk out the door and my personal wants, needs and problems get in the way all bets are off.

Lord, I don't want to learn this lesson the hard way. Please forgive me for not reaching out to that poor crying woman. Please be with her and have mercy on her and provide her with comfort and peace. Please continue to tug on my heart when I need to stop what I am doing and take notice of what you are doing. Please forgive me for being a hypocrite, Lord. I will do better tomorrow. And Lord, thank you for my wife even though she is a Cardinals fan. I am truly blessed.