Crazy Week

So this week reminded me a lot of the week of my wife and I's wedding. A lot of stuff went crazily wrong leading up to the wedding, but in the end we had an amazingly awesome and beautiful wedding. It's just been one of those weeks where you stand there and say "really God?" You ever had one of those days? weeks? months? It just seems like no matter what you do you land on "go directly to jail and do not collect $200."

I played a lot of baseball growing up and, as many of you know, baseball players have a lot of superstitions. A lot of times if I did well I'd not wash my jersey, wear the same socks, not shave and even eat the same lunch I did on the previous game. I did all of this because I thought that if it worked that day then it would have to have the same result. If the next game I hit horribly I wouldn't say it out loud, but I would think in my head that I didn't do something the same that I did the other day. When I moved up into the oldest league I even took on the challenge of wearing #13 for the simple fact that it was seen as a superstitious #...there was NO other reason I picked it... Seriously...baseball players are freakishly superstitious. If you don't believe me, watch the next time a pitcher walks off the field and I can almost guarantee you that he won't step on the white base line. Stepping on the base line is the baseball equivalent of stepping on a crack in the cement...but instead of breaking your mother's back...it skyrockets your ERA.

What is dangerous though is when we let this type of thinking carry over into our spiritual lives. Instead of treating God like God...we treat Him like a scorekeeper. We feel that if we do enough of the right things and enough of the things He commands us to do then we will win His favor. We see the rewards in various ways including: finding $5 on the sidewalk, a snow/hurricane day at school, or the best parking spot in a huge packed parking lot.

On the other hand, if we do bad things, He punishes us by causing our car tire to magically run over a nail, for snow plows to clear the streets and school stays open, the hurricane turns and goes out to sea instead of hitting land, and not only are there no parking spots in the huge parking lot, but it's also raining cats and dogs and you took your umbrella out last week.

When we have this mindset we forget the amazing grace that God has shown to us. It really is more than a popular song...His grace is truly amazing. We always say that God is love....and in 1 Corinthians 13 it talks how love does not keep a record of wrongdoings. Based on this verse we can know that God is not keeping track of our wrongdoings, but that He rejoices when we make decisions that honor Him.