June 10, 2019 - Own The Space

Last week we talked about not being slack… that being “good” is not measured just by what you don’t do wrong… but also by what you do right… if you are making a difference in the game. As I type this I have spent the day planning and preparing, not only for our busy summer, but also for the next local ministry year we commit to (these are plans we make for period of Labor Day to Memorial Day here in our home area); future national outreach; and of course our international outreach (as I just had a Dominican pastor send me a message saying, “I want to tell you that I have started a basketball team with the boys of the church, we want to know if it would be possible for you to train them to preach the Gospel using basketball.”)

Whether it be the term missions, great commission, labor, good works, or whatever… we tend to think very heavily about planning; and I don’t think it is wrong to plan… the Lord planned… He planned good works that we should walk in them (Ephesians 2:10.) We tend to talk about God’s will for our lives as it pertains to specific times and places we are “called to.” And again, I don’t have a problem with that; at times the Lord does give a specific call to a place and time.

Yet I think we need to be careful with this mentality… the Scripture gives such a warning: James 4:13-16 tells of the danger of dogmatically making plans since we don’t know what tomorrow holds. It doesn’t forbid making plans… just reminds us that the Lord has some things to say in all of it.

What the Scriptures do dogmatically give us is God’s will for any given moment on what attitudes we should have… what lifestyles we should be living… what focus we should have. In other words, it is not just about the scheduled games.

I have spent a lot of my life with scheduling, even serving some years as an athletic director. I have been to a lot of games, a lot of practices, a lot of camps/clinics, etc. But growing up that failed in comparison to how often I simply went out back to my goal… or even up to the outdoor courts at Washington School in the middle of the night… illuminated by the one flood light on the corner of the kitchen. I loved to simply call up my friend Chris and say let’s play hoops. Or maybe it was an impromptu game of Nerf hoops with one of my brothers. Basketball was not just the scheduled part of my life… but truly defined my life… I was always looking for opportunities to play.

So even though I plan mission trips, I remind folks all the time that every believer is on a mission trip that began at the point of salvation! We should be looking for every opportunity we can to “play the game.” I read a really cool thought in a blog from one of the young ladies I used to train (hoops) / teach (Bible)… she is now in college, playing division 1 hoops at Liberty U. Yet she still took time this summer to head overseas to serve in missions. As she was sharing her thoughts, she made this realization:

“We are all running around trying to find our purpose. We worry about it, we overthink it, and we use the strategies of the world to tell us what job or path we’re compatible with.
Proverbs 19:21 “Many are the plans in a person’s heart, but it is the Lord’s purpose that prevails.”
The future is not something for us to fear and it isn’t our job to figure out the next step. Be wise, be prepared. But our job is to fear the Lord in all his might, to find peace in the assurance that his purpose prevails, to find joy in His will to “work in us what is pleasing to him.”
My purpose may not be glamorous, and it may not always leave me with a light heart, but it is crazy beautiful! LIGHT up the path God has you on today. It may not be where you want to be and you may be on your way to something else but ask Jesus for the wisdom to be content, to focus whole-heartedly on the path he’s placed you on because the 2 feet of space that you take up is your mission field.” (Jordan “JP” Peters)

I often tell players to “own their space.” I explain that the game is about “owning real estate”; beating the opponent to the spot he wants when playing “D”… or getting to the spot you want when on offense. JP is reminding us that wherever we happen to be… Own the space!

Yes, plans are good… but ultimately your mission field is always the “2 feet of space you take up” in any given moment, not just the scheduled ones!