As those who know me best know, I’m a bit of a sports fan. However, I consider myself a bit of a “picky eater” with which sports and sports teams I choose to indulge in. I don’t just sit down, and binge watch an entire day of college football each Saturday in the Fall. I am pretty selective and purposeful about which games I invest my time in. In general, if they’re wearing the OSU Block “O” Logo, I’m a fan! Other teams and sports I’m a little more cautious to go all-in on.
Especially lately, the Blue Jackets NHL Hockey Team seems to have emerged as a major favorite of mine. I’ve been following them to some degree or another from the beginning and am proud to say I attended the Inaugural Game back on October 7th, 2000. I jokingly consider myself a committed, wannabee fan! I have been around it enough now though to pick up on the lingo so I at least sound like I know what’s going on.
With the intense action of the game, its speed, agility, and power, checking, positioning, passing and shooting, I am intrigued by the simplicity of the play. On more than a few occasions I hear “They just need to get more shots on net!” Simply put, they just need to shoot the puck at the net more! Over and over. Just take a shot. “Blanket the net with shots.”
You can be the fastest skater, or the strongest inside player, or have the best footwork in the NHL, but if you aren’t taking the shots, you aren’t going to score. I love the infamous words of the great Wayne Gretsky, “You are guaranteed to miss 100% of the shots you never take!” And WOW how that transcends hockey and sports in general!
Too often we fail to take the shots that we’re called to take, and for a myriad of reasons; we’re distracted by the chaos of life or we’re too busy with things that probably shouldn’t be on our plates in the first place. Or maybe we don’t step-up to what we’re called to out of fear; fear of failure, fear that we can’t live up to someone else’s expectations, or our own, or God’s. We’ve got lots of good reasons, right? But at the end of the day, they’re just good ‘ole fashioned excuses. The truth is, if He calls you to it, He’ll see you through it. If He orders it, He’ll pay for it.
We have all kinds of good excuses as to why we don’t feel we can accomplish what God has said we can. Ultimately, our false humility leads to us not “taking a shot”, and actually exposes our lack of faith in God. Ouch!
James 2:17 says “Faith without action is dead.” If I may paraphrase, you can say you have a great faith in God and will follow Him no matter what, but when we fail to take the steps He calls us to – – That faith is dead.
That doesn’t have to be us! I want us to be a people that just take a lot of shots! When we sense a prompting from the Lord, let’s just go for it! Let’s just take a shot! And then another . . . and then another . . . and then another . . .
~Pastor Mitch