Saturday my daughter Faith was playing in an AAU
basketball tourney and their team was on a fast break… she looked ahead and
made a pass to her teammate running the lane. The pass made it through and it
looked great; it was a high risk play that brought a lot of cheers. Right after
that they found themselves in a very similar situation and this time Faith went
for the same exact pass; yet this time the defense was ready and stole it. This
was a case where the old phrase (“went to the well once too often”) comes into
play… it is a situation where the passer got greedy for more.
I’m sure in Faith’s mind she thought it went well the
first time, so why not try again. I’m sure she enjoyed the feeling of
accomplishment, so why not try again. And to be honest, my view when I was
coaching was to encourage “going for it until they stop it.” Sounds a lot like
Nike saying, “Just do it!”
In life we tend to get “greedy” as well. Obviously we
have greed when it comes to material things; my pastor refers to things where one
should be enough and we say we just want “one… more.” Yet this spirit of greed
is also a problem in leading us down paths of sin…
Think about how sin takes control. We make a decision to
just give something a try, even though we know it is wrong. Then if we don’t see
the immediate negative consequence we “go to the well again.” And eventually,
we find we went to the well once too often as sin wreaks its havoc in our
lives. I love the old phrase “sin will
take you farther than you planned go, keep you longer than you planned to stay,
and cost you more than you planned to spend.”
“Just once” quickly turns to “just one more time” when we
allow sin to have a foot in the door of our lives. Sin makes us greedy for
more. Early on the enemy whispers, “Just do it!” in our ears and we are lured
in…
This week’s devo is a long way around to encouraging, or
better yet, pleading that you “do not enter the path of the wicked, and do not
walk in the way of evil. Avoid it, do not travel on it; turn away from it and
pass on… Ponder the path of your feet, and let all your ways be established. Do
not turn to the right or the left; remove your foot from evil.” (Provers 4:14-15,
26-27)
No comments:
Post a Comment