Ever watch pole-vaulting? You know, where a perfectly healthy man or woman runs dangerously fast with an incredibly long pole only to jam it into the ground and hope that the force of the run will successfully throw them violently into the air high enough as to clear a bar which is hovering high into the heavens.

Do you know what is ironic about this sport? You HAVE to fail at it in order to succeed. Think about it. The game isn’t over until you actually keep missing the bar.

That’s the same with our lives. It’s not until we recognize that we are unable to meet God’s standards on our own that we can allow Him to succeed for us. Romans 3:20 says “for no one can ever be made right in God’s sight by doing what He commands. For the more we know God’s law, the clearer it becomes that we are not obeying it.”

In essence, the better we get, the more we realize that we will never be able to reach the top. That’s why we know of God’s ‘grace’. Grace lifts us over the bar when we can’t make it… That’s how we succeed and finally win!

At least that’s how I see it,

C

A number of years ago I had the privilege of going on a week long golf trip with my dad. It was one of those once-in-a-lifetime dreams that Dad had and we made it happen. For me, I loved the trips there and back because it gave me a chance to find out more of his upbringing (he was trapped in a car for 28 hours… it’s not like he could go anywhere).

If I had never heard the stories, there would so much of my history that I would never know. The battles, the victories, the failures, the successes; all making him, and my heritage what it is.

In the book of Deuteronomy (6:6-7), the families of Israel are instructed to make sure that their children hear the stories of what God had done. Without those stories, the children would lose sight of God’s importance in their lives.

Sometimes I wonder if we ‘tell our children’ enough of what God has done. If they never hear then they will grow up being not only being unsure of His importance but not understand how involved He wants to be in our everyday lives. We need to make a point of reliving the memories and instilling them in our future.

At least that’s how I see it,

C