April 22, 2013 - Dominoes Trash Talk

A few weeks ago I wrote about fishing; and being that this a sports-devotion blog, it took seeing the competitive juices rise up in my son in trying to catch more and bigger fish than his siblings… This past week brings another new “competitive sport” to the weekly blog: Dominoes…

I think the most I had ever done with Dominoes is line them up to tip them over; I confess I have never played the game nor do I fully understand how it is played. Yet two of our team that was in the Dominican Republic faced off with two of the Dominicans for some games and it became quite entertaining.

The noise level coming from their game caught my attention and I went over to check it out. What I found was the Dominicans bragging about how badly they were beating the Americans. But understand the Dominicans spoke no English and of the two Americans only one spoke limited Spanish. The bragging was understandable though as they kept telling me “cinco…uno” – they were ahead 5 to 1. And the posture and looks on the Dominicans’ faces showed they were feeling really good! I loved it – cocky Dominoes players!

On the way to the airport Friday one of the Americans told our translator to tell Pastor Felix (one of the Dominican players) that he was going to practice at home and when he gets back to the DR beat him in Dominoes; to which Pastor Felix responded, “That is like aspiring to get to Heaven on a bicycle!” Are you kidding me? Now we even have Dominoes trash talk! (The van erupted in laughter.)

His funny statement reminded me of the message I had heard Ron Bishop give only a couple nights before at a baseball coaches’ clinic being held in the DR. As Ron addressed those 250 coaches from around the country he told them that this idea of getting to Heaven really comes down to a couple things: Winners vs Losers…

We were at a baseball village, a setting that handles life much like religions do; there are daily evaluations of talent that determine one’s worthiness to make the team. (In fact the day I was there had a Dominican trying out for the Giants organization and asking for a $20mil signing bonus…) These coaches understand trying to earn a coach’s favor; just like religions sincerely try to earn God’s favor…

Yet Ron clearly explained that Christianity is different; that according to God we are all losers and must accept that in order to accept the Winner, Jesus Christ! He clearly shared that at the end of the game of life what matters is being on the winning team!

There will be no trash talk in Heaven about how we got there since none of us earned it. Therefore my prayer this week is that each of us spend our time instead bragging about Jesus! My prayer is that the truth of Ephesians 2:8-9 will spur us on to being Ephesians 2:10 people! (Look them up!!!!!)