I am still stuck on the appropriateness of judging, or not judging, other people's actions. We are called to be truthful in our interactions with others, and so, presumably, if I see someone sinning, I should point it out to them. But at the same time, I recognize that I am a flawed individual myself - so who am I to point out the speck in someone else's eye, to paraphrase Jesus.
So, as I was driving and thinking about this, I had a sudden funny picture in my head of the whole world going around sinning and then pointing at each other and saying, "No, you're doing it wrong." It reminded me a lot of Tee Ball coaching.
You get about fifteen little five and six year old kids on a field and you try to explain to them the rules of the game. Half of them are too busy looking at the dirt, or the sky, or a worm, or whatever, to even hear what you say. The other half give you blank stares like you're speaking Martian. You line up all the kids and have them practice. Some run straight ahead, some run to the side, some don't run at all, some are too busy joking around, some are too shy to do anything. As a coach, you spend more time dealing with 15 individual personalities than you do dealing with a team.
But, at the end of the practice or the game, you can't help but smiling. Sure, its frustrating wondering whether the kids understood a thing you said at all, but its also a great deal of fun. You can't get mad at them. Its impossible. And it would serve no purpose. The point of it all is not whether they win or lose, nobody is even keeping score, its to teach them what the game is all about. And whether they get it or not, at the end of the day, its really all about whether they had fun and whether they got along with each other.
Of course, the tricky thing about such an analogy is that we are all God's children. Every single one of us is just a tee ball kid. We are goofy. We are naughty. We are impatient. We are shy. We don't really pay attention. And no matter what we do, at the end of the day, God is still smiling. He can't help it. He tries to teach us the rules of the game. He tries to make us understand what he expects from us. But even if we completely tune Him out in favor of something silly, He still loves us all.
God is our Tee-ball coach and we are all teammates on this great big tee-ball team. We should learn to share, to support our teammates (even if we don't like them), and to respect and listen to our coach. Oh, and most importantly, we should have fun.
And one more thing... Go Lil Red Sox!
3 comments:
I'm glad you put up this post, because it saves me from having to write it. ;-)
God as Tee-ball coach - I like it.
Just as in our very first Tee-ball practice ever as coaches, when we told the kids to run to 2nd base from home plate, half of them ran diagonally across the diamond. God tells us to run to 2nd base, and we do the same thing. We don't listen.
And God makes it so easy, too. He's not ever pitching the ball to us...we just have to hit it off the tee.
I try hard not to judge others, but I must admit I end up having an opinion on others.
I try hard to make the distinction between the person and his/her behaviour, but its tough.
Your post made me think on this subject. Thanks!
Kids in general are fun. Even when I have to discipline Josh, I have such love in my heart for him. I think that's how God is. Even at our worst, he has such love in his heart for us.
BTW, I've been having trouble accessing your new stuff. So, I have a lot of catching up to do on reading!
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