God's Coaching #3

God's Coaching #3

Maybe you’ve seen him in McDonald’s commercials. A short, dark-haired boy with hands that move faster than your eyes can see. Steven Purugganan can stack cups in record speed. In fact, he set the world record in the individual cycle stack in sport stacking at the Greater Cleveland Ohio Sport Stacking Championships on January 3, 2009.

If you haven’t seen this event, a competitor in the cycle stack must begin with 12 cups divided into three stacks. He starts by building pyramids of three, six, and three cups. Then he tears those down and creates two six-cup pyramids. Finally, he rips those apart and forms a 10-cup pyramid with one cup on each side. The last move has the athlete slide those cups down until he ends up the way he started with three stacks of cups.

It probably took you about 25 seconds to read that description of the cycle stack. Steven performed all those moves in 5.93 seconds! (You can see a video of speedy sport stackers like Steven on YouTube or by going to worldsportstackingassociation.org.)

Of course, Steven didn’t always stack perfectly. Sometimes his cups fell down. A rule in sport stacking says an athlete must go back and fix his mistakes or his time doesn’t count. Steven may have been young, but he knew to always fix his fumbles.

What’s the Score?

Wouldn’t it be cool if we could always go back and fix our mistakes? Maybe we’d study harder for that test. Maybe we’d remember to take out the trash like our parents asked. Maybe we wouldn’t say the mean comment to the new kid.

The cool thing about the Christian life is that we can be forgiven for our past mistakes when we ask for God’s forgiveness. That doesn’t mean there won’t be consequences for what we’ve done, but it does mean we don’t have to walk around feeling guilty about our former fumbles. When we do something mean or don’t follow through on a promise, we have the opportunity to go back to the person we wronged and say, “I’m sorry.” The same thing is true about our relationship with Jesus Christ. When we sin, we need to ask him for forgiveness as well. First John 1:9 says, “If we confess our sins to him, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all wickedness.” Isn’t it cool that God promises to always forgive us when we fumble?

On the Ball

Is there a person you need to find to say, “I’m sorry”? Make a plan to ask for forgiveness.

Coach’s Comment

If we confess our sins to him, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all wickedness. 1 John 1:9