When We're not on our 'A' Game

My kids are now getting old enough that they have started bringing home report cards from school. I remember those days, when my report card would provide a very clear-cut indication of how I was performing in each precisely defined subject. I also remember what it felt like when I graduated from school into life. All of the sudden things weren’t as cut and dry anymore, and very often I found myself not really having any idea what “grade” I might receive on my performance in life on any given day or week or month.

In many ways the Christian life is very similar. It’s often hard to find easily measurable indicators that provide us with a grade for how we’re doing. And this, in fact, is one of the favorite tactics that the enemy uses against us: he likes to make us feel as though we’re receiving a failing grade as much as possible. He likes to tell us that we have nothing to offer, or that our efforts to serve are having no impact, or that our frequent failings leave God constantly disappointed in us, or that our struggles disqualify us from being able to be used by God.

A few weeks ago a child in a Grace Sunday School class was moved by the lesson one Sunday to place his faith in Christ for the first time. As I sat in my office with this little boy and his dad, it was a rich time watching him absorb the gospel message of God’s love and receive by faith Christ’s finished work on his behalf. Later I had a chance to talk to his teacher who had given the lesson that day. She told me that as she had prepared that lesson she wondered if her lessons ever really got through to the children and felt like she was not on her ‘A game’ when she taught the lesson that day. And yet God used it to bring a little boy to himself for the first time.

There are going to be days when we’re not on our ‘A game.’ There are going to be moments that the enemy will do everything he can to discourage us and make it feel as though we must be certainly be failing. May we remember that God does not need our ‘A game’ in order to work through us. In fact, our best ‘A game’ is not enough to earn us God’s favor anyway. Rather, the Lord invites us to trust in the ‘A game’ of Christ, the one who died as our perfect sacrifice and now lives toward us with a perfect love. We will not always be on our ‘A game’, but thankfully we have a Savior who always is.

Ben

monthly resources

Below are some articles I’ve run across this past month that you may find helpful:

1. The Church as a Radical Welcoming Community
2. Not Easily Offended
3. The God of Your Troubled Heart
4. Pray For Those In Authority