About the Sport Principle
There is a power in team sports that those of us who primarily engage in individual sports routinely miss out on. I loved my few-and-far-between chances to play rugby union at secondary school. That’s perhaps partly due to the kamikaze element in my character, honed even then, by years being smashed into a judo mat. Unlike judo, however, on the rugby field, there was something profoundly reassuring when facing the disproportionately oversized forwards (even for year 9s) of the opposing team, in hearing a team mate shout “with you!”
Application to Life
This message is really very simple today. Our primary purpose as followers of Jesus is simply to be ‘with Him.’ This is crystal clear from the moment Jesus calls his disciples. You are a human being, you are not a human doing. As men of God, we often work at the wrong end of the equation on this: we concentrate on doing more when perhaps God is calling us to become more.
Why not waste some time with God today?
Have you ever noticed how even our language shines a light on this misunderstanding: we talk about ‘spending time’ with God, or ‘doing’ our devotions. Why does it always have to be about achievement? Today, can we simply waste some time with God, and just be with Him? Like so much in God’s upside down Kingdom, you might just find it’s the most productive part of the day, but that’s never the aim. The aim is being with God for its own sake.
One other thing I want to mention with a readership of men in mind is that over the years I have discovered that you are never more ‘with Him’ than when you are alone. What we do in the darkness that nobody else sees, but that God sees, reveals way more than anything we might do in the light of day, the extent to which we are ‘with Him.’
When we remain true to our original calling and stay with Him, we can face literally any opposition in our lives, no matter how strong or disproportionately over-sized our opponent might seem to be.
“He appointed twelve that they might be with him.”
Mark 3:14a
Image Credit: Valentin Salja
