A Life Lesson from My Eight Year Old

                Baseball is a crazy sport where I live. Well, it's not that the sport itself is any more ridiculous, it's just that it's taken so seriously that it gets a little crazy. My son, who is 8, made the all star team this year. I was super excited for him. Only 12 players out of his entire league made the cut. I was especially proud of him because baseball was never my sport. I don't particularly enjoy watching it and when I played as a child, I was terrible. But he really enjoys it and is a decent player. He, by no means, is the best player on the team. He may actually be toward the bottom. He generally catches the ball very well, he's not afraid of it, he's one of the top two or three fastest kids, and he's pretty good at bat. He needs a lot of work throwing though. But, like I said, he's not the worst, but certainly not the best either.

                In the state tournament he just played in he taught me a lesson I'll never forget. He had been playing first base, but in this particular game he wasn't playing at all. He wasn't in the batting line up, nor was he playing the field. The coach had him collecting the bats...and that was pretty much it. I was confused, frustrated, and if I'm honest...hurt. My son should be playing...somewhere. I was getting furious. Why was my son the only player on the entire team through 3 innings not to step on the field. So, in my heated frustration (which if you know me, you know that generally things don't bother me at all) I marched myself right over to the dugout and yelled at the coaches, "Does Dawson need to pack up his bag right now? Do we need to go home or is he actually going to play?" I continued, "I'm not trying to be a jerk, but this is ridiculous!" The coach chipped in, "Well, you're being a pretty good one right now! But he's going in, every kid has to play." I stomped away still fuming. My poor, pitiful child who wasn't getting to play for his team was about to go in because the team "every kid HAS to play." That was even more of an insult to me. I packed up my bag chair and left the infield viewing area and went out to where my wife and mother-in-law had already moved to.

                Once I sat back down, it hit me. I had become the very thing I can't stand. I let my emotions get the best of me and in turn, showed everyone there the worst of me...including my son who stared at me in the dugout throughout my entire Mr. Hyde episode.  knew immediately that I needed to apologize. After the game, I quickly found all three coaches and apologized for my actions. I apologized to their wives as well. After all, they don't answer to me. I'm not the coach, they are. The coach calmly talked to me and explained why my son wasn't playing that particular game and it honestly all made since...and had nothing to do with him as a player. Everyone was very forgiving and explained to me that they had all pretty much been there before.

                However, the real lesson in this didn't come until my son came out of the dugout. He ran up to me with the biggest grin on his face. He excitedly yelled, "Dad! Guess what!? I got to be the bat boy! It was awesome! I also got to be a runner for one of the other kids! It was great!" So you see, there it is. My son had a blast! Isn't that why we let him play to begin with? Isn't that the whole reason he was there? Wasn't that the whole reason sports were invented...for people to recreate and have fun? Here I was trying my best to protect my poor child from the evil coach monster that was destroy his fun and he was having the time of his life doing exactly what he was asked to do. Oh, by the way, I always tell him to "just be ready to do whatever the coach asks you to do." Maybe it would behoove me to start asking my kids how things are rather than assuming I already know. As parents, maybe we do a little too much assuming and not enough talking. If I would have waited until after the game and have seen my sons response first, I could have spare everyone having to watch me act like a fool.

James 1:19

My dear brothers and sisters, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry.

Procrasti...Eh, I'll Finish This Title Later

Crazy, huh? I'm writing about procrastination this week. Well, I haven't written a blog in about a year...which says I've been procrastinating on that for some time. I wanted to, but I kept putting it off until tomorrow...which, of course, never came. I had all kinds of blogs I was going to write and twice as many excuses on why not to write them. Good excuses too; like the one where I was tired and decided I should take a nap. Oh, and the one where I told myself I deserved a break from writing because I was in school and had to write enough as it was. And then there was the excuse that I didn't have time because I was too busy...and then went and watched some TV. Then there's the one where I decided I didn't know how to blog. I also decided once that no one cared, so I didn't write. See what I mean, Really Good Excuses (note the sarcasm). I guess that's what brought me here today. I thought, I should write about procrastinating to stop procrastinating, to myself.

So, now on to writing about procrastination. Procrastination is a demon! I've been reading the book "The War of Art" by Steven Pressfield and it's given me great insights to the role of resistance in our lives. It talks about how resistance goal is to destroy us and is not satisfied until it does. Wow, how true is that! Procrastination may be Satan's finest tool. The ability to show us what we should do, have the insight to know we can accomplish it, and then rob us the satisfaction of completion is an affective tool for depression, anxiety, and low self-esteem. Not only that, but how affective this tool is in preventing me from doing what God wants me to do. It seems silly to think I'd lean on a crutch of Satan's rather than flourish in the power of the Almighty!

 As I look at my excuses for not blogging, I think I can honestly say I've used them all before. Like when I decided I was tired to go to church, so I slept in that day. Or the time I felt lead to attend Bible study but decided I was too busy and watched football instead.  Or that time when I was asked to preach and didn't because I was afraid I didn't know how. Or the time I was going to serve at church and thought nobody really cared if I did. These are my excuses. Some of them might be yours too. I say it's time to give the devil his crutch back and start living life more abundantly!

Procrastination confuses our priorities and uproots God's plans in our lives.It's the death of our motivation and of truly living. If you're wondering why you feel God hasn't given you any direction, it might be because your not actually following the directions he's given you. At least, that's how it's happened in my life. From now on, I'm choosing the life God already chose for me. John 10:10 says, "A thief comes to steal and kill and destroy, but I came to give life—life in all its fullness." Won't you join me? Let Satan keep his silly little tools. They ain't got nothing on the power of Christ, who already defeated death and has raised us all to a new life! Let's Go Live!