Stop Beating Yourself Up

I like football.  I follow the Packers every year, from the pre-season through the first game of the playoffs when they tend to choke and bomb out.  Whenever they are down at half time, I encourage myself and my fellow-fans with the truism that "anything the other team did to the Packers during the first half, the Pack can do to them in the second."  They put up 20 and hold us to 3, we can do the same and go into overtime tied.

Of course, no one plays for a tie.  At half time, both teams re-calibrate.  Figure out how to exploit weaknesses discovered, and figure out how to avoid making mistakes.  "Get your head in the game."  Make them beat us, if they can.  We don't want to beat ourselves.

We've seen plenty of come-from-behind heroics - in the NFL (okay, so maybe it's rigged) but also in life.  Your life and mine.

Satan, sin, the world-flesh-and-devil, all combine to beat the hell out of us when we're stupid, poorly coached, maybe unmotivated, maybe mis-prioritised.   But we're in the second half now, and need not dwell on the fumbles, dropped passes, or any of the other mistakes we made before half time. 

Yes, I screwed up a lot - I assume most of us probably did.  None of us can ever think we "did okay" or somehow "deserve" to win this game.  The best we can do during the second half is listen CAREFULLY to the Coach and follow His directions.  If we can just do that, we can still prevail.  We can still become the men (and women) God wants us to become.  We are still His workmanship.

We're close to the "finish line" (to switch to Paul's metaphor in Heb. 12:1) but we're not there yet.  Stop looking back at the mistakes of your past (Phil. 3:13) and look unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith.  He is coming soon, and His reward is with Him.