Tuesday, June 27, 2017
Teach
me your ways, O Lord, that I may live according to your truth! Grant me purity of heart, so that I may honor
you. Psalm 86:11(NLT)
Third base
is affectionately known as the hot
corner. When a right-handed
hitter hits a screamer
at the third baseman there isn’t much time to think; you simply react. You react according to the coaching you’ve
received and the training you’ve done. I
know this from some painful and embarrassing experience! The embarrassing experience came in a high
school game against our arch rival.
Their third baseman launched a rocket off his bat that kissed the ground
as it skipped right between my feet and into the outfield! I was frozen in time; hardly saw it! The painful experience was years later in a church
softball game. One of our board members
hit a preacher-seeking missile towards third base. Unlike the one in high school, this one found
its target, my right ankle. The blood
clot that ensued meant three days in the hospital. Never did find out why that board member didn’t
like me!
Much like
the action/reaction
nature of sports are the moral and ethical dilemmas of this life which come at
you broadside, blind-side and all-sides.
David prayed for God to teach him God’s ways so he could make decisions
that were according to God’s truth. He
wanted a clean heart, pure enough so he would recognize the blackness of sin
when confronted with a choice between righteousness and evil.
That’s a
good prayer, but how does that play out in real time?
Several ways:
·
In school
– you have a teacher who is loose on security, so you’re tempted to cheat on
that chemistry test because you didn’t study.
·
At work
– you underestimated the cost of that project, but you could make up the
shortfall by getting sub-standard materials that would be buried; nobody would
know.
·
Shopping
– the clerk didn’t realize she had put a $100 bill in with the $1’s and she gave
it to you by mistake with your change.
There are
something like twenty-six gazillion other possibilities that can swamp you in a
wave of unethical, immoral, and unlawful temptations. And the worst are those which come silently
and quickly, with little time to think.
That’s why
you pray David’s prayer early for God to teach your heart His ways, so when the
reaction time calls for an immediate decision, it will be the ways of God’s truth that win
the day.
For You Today
A
pure heart stays pure when you let God’s ways handle the hot ones that come
from broadside, blind-side, and all sides.
NOTES
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