November 28, 2005

The Bible, Our Playbook for Life

bibleJust as a football team has a playbook filled with strategic plays for games, we must utilize our playbook for life - The bible.

God always intended that we reach out for his word, the Bible, in order to know how to live this life. There are play books in football and the entire team depends on the plays inside that book in order to help them win games. If we want to be victorious and win at the game of life, we must depend on God's playbook to do it.

What you will find

God's book, the Bible, is filled with wisdom and light and you won't find foolishness within it's pages. Inside of this playbook you can find answers to all manner of obstacles and dead ends you may encounter in life. If you lack love and compassion, this book will tell you why. If you wish your faith to be strengthened, the bible will tell you how to get a strong and unshakable faith. If you have the feeling that you haven't a friend or family member on earth that understands the pain and grief you're going through, we are told in the bible that there is indeed a "friend who sticks closer than a brother". It is he who can see you through these problems, even when there may be nobody else who cares what becomes of you.

At the most make or break times in my life, I have reached for his word and have never been let down.

Do you wish to find someone who understands what you're going through with all the struggles and sorrows that have been heaped on you by others in this world? You will find a man named Jesus and his story within the pages of this playbook's text. You will find that he can truly understand your grief and pain.

Do you feel persecuted and treated unjustly by those who are to care the most for you - your family?

We read in the bible that even a man's own dear family and friends may turn against him. This is a sad fact of life. But we do not have to allow the pain of even this to have power and reign over us. We do not have to allow anger and bitterness to rule over us and control our actions and our lives. We do not have to allow sin to have dominion over us.

While we go about living this life and learning from the struggles we endure, we can come out of a trial either stronger or weaker than when we first experienced the pain of it. We will have pain and struggles and we will most likely be angry, hurt, humiliated and betrayed but in all of these things, we can know by reaching for his playbook that he has never left our side and that he will see us through these things as well.

From the Book of Psalms more than any other, I have found the words that have offered me the comfort that was needed to see me through some truly devastating times. In these pages I have read where God say's that he will settle the matters that have caused me pain and suffering. He not only wants to do this for me, he wants to do this for all who would call upon him. It is he and not me who will set all things straight and will judge a matter in which I have been wronged or hurt by another. We are not able to judge matters rightly as he can. No matter what we say, do or think, God knows what is in the heart of man. Therefore, it is only he who is able to judge and not we ourselves.

The playbook can and will direct our steps we take on our journey in this life.

We read in the bible that it is not in man to direct his steps and to plot his own course in life. We are to be directed by God's spirit and by his Holy word.

Our eyes and senses divert our attention away from God, his word and his truth. This world is filled with powerful attention getters. We have television, movies, sports, money, shopping, politics, religion, all competing for our attention and time in this life. Time is one commodity that is truly worth it's weight in gold. We waste precious time on things that will ultimately dry up and wither away. But what of the things that will last forever like our souls? What about our spirit that God has given us? What will happen to us once we have lost our life in this world and go on to our life in the hereafter?

These are all questions that many want answers to.

God would have us to be concerned over these questions and the answers to them. God would have us ponder the afterlife. He would have us to ask questions of him, for he desires to give us answers.

The answers to these questions are all in the playbook for life, the Bible.

May we all strive to give more attention to this playbook. It is in our best interest to do so. God would not have us be blinded to his truth and to understanding that truth. We are bombarded on all sides by lies and deceit because we live in this world which grows darker by the day. But you will find no lies and deceit within the pages of the bible. Only truth and light.