The other night I attended an Albuquerque Isotopes game with some members of my family and we sat in the nosebleeds, as far down the line as it gets. Not terrible seats but not great by any means. My cousin Paul noticed some seats across the diamond on the lower level about 8 rows up that were wide open. He suggested we move down there, why not right? So as we took the move in two shifts, Paul, his wife and son, and myself making the first attempt I shared with them my story of a Yankees@Rangers series where we sat 3 rows up from Nolan Ryan one night and 5 behind the Yankee on deck circle the following night.
It was then that the discussion began, and the thoughts raced.
My cousin Paul turned to me and asked, “So Austin, why do you think you are so favored?” At first I didn’t understand what he was saying and thought he was trying to joke so I laughed and said, “What do you mean?” He followed with what I’ve never realized or examined until that moment, “Why do you think things go your way so often, whether that be free things or good seats.” I understood the question, but I didn’t know how to respond to him. I sort of shrugged my shoulders and laughed it off but my head was moving a million miles a minute. It’s hard to determine biblically what to take from it, Romans tells us straight up that God does not show favoritism, but then you see it everywhere in the Bible that God takes favor in “those who do good” ,“those who love Him”, etc. I’m not going to get into the difference between favoritism and showing favor, hopefully that can be determined fairly easily.
This question I was asked has been bouncing around my head because I haven’t ever thought that I was favored. For one, the thought never crossed my mind, I never considered that God was giving me little gifts, showing me how much He loves me and cares about me through the little things. More often then not, especially recently I have been focusing on the “negative” things that have been holding me down a little bit. You know what I’m talking about, the things that don’t leave your mind and affect every aspect of your day no matter how hard you try to let them go. When I have so many good things going on in my life, one thing, that isn’t going exactly how I want it, is what I cannot get off my mind. Funny when I feel so weighed down and people are seeing me as “favored”. So who is right?
As it step back and look at the big picture of everything in my life, even few things not going exactly how I wish they were, I have a lot of great things in my life and I’m extremely favored. I used the expression with a friend recently that “that was one of the top 5 hardest things I’ve ever done. Thank God for my friends keeping me in check without even knowing it, the response I got was, what are the other 4? Needless to say I could only come up with 2 things, not bad for 21 years of life.
Maybe you have been feeling like me lately, like why can’t this or that be going the way you want. Take a step back, how much is actually going well, how many little gifts (that we don’t deserve, that I don’t deserve) are you getting and not even realizing?
Everything is according to a bigger plan, sometimes I don’t get that, sometimes I don’t like that. But that’s ok, God is going to show me how much He loves me and how much He has control even when I am not sure.
The 7 of us moved down the third base line, 8 rows up from the grass that night. Another example of the favor I am shown. Now its time to be thankful and recognize it all.
Much Love
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