Here is the truth family, I keep God and my blessings as bay.  There is so much “potential ” in my life for me to glorify the kingdom of God and yet I choose to be selfish and act like a child.  The word potential is not a good word and it is usually not a good thing to hear someone has so much potential, especially in coaching.  When you have an athlete that has so much potential and you talk about that, it usually means they are missing the mark and they do not realize the champion in them.  The more I learn about Jesus and God and the Holy Spirit the more I understand the perfect example of team.  As an acronym team means “together everyone achieves more” and what better team than 3 who are so in tune with their mission they are considered one.  The goal of every championship coach is to have his team perform as one.  Being a good Christian means I need to be coachable.  The same type of things that upset me about an athlete with “potential” are the exact same spiritual things I am doing to God.  One of the things I catch myself doing, even after serving for Jesus is I can become very selfish.  I have this innate feeling that will overcome me that I need to do this my way because my way produces results now or the dreaded I will do this one last time because I am a sinner.  When we do things like that, being selfish, we Block our blessings.  God’s will is going to be done no matter what we do, however, how can God trust me with the blessing of a wife or success in His name if I can’t handle the small victories He gives me everyday.  My spiritual awakening of actually noticing I was blocking my blessings came on 6/23/2016.

This brings me to my favorite story in the Bible.  When Jesus restores Peter with love.  He gives Peter three times to say he loves Jesus to replace the three times he denounced him.  This story and the prodigal son story hit home for me.  It is so pleasing to know that God the Father runs to us when we come home.  My heart has turned back to my younger days of first following Jesus and how strongly I shared that with friend, family and foe.  I find myself in a state of complacency and laziness at times now.  Even then as I think back, I was always so selfish to medicate a feeling that I did not want to or know how to (back then) give to God.  As I go back further into my childhood I just remember how much fun it was to play with my friends, to be running up and down the street, climbing trees, playing basketball and cops and robbers.  That was the life and we enjoyed every blessing that came our way.  Joy is what I had when I was little and around my friends.  The joy of being outside, the joy of playing and the joy of friendship were beautiful.  This is what God wants from me, He wants me to experience His Joy and from that I can receive and give Love.  Joy is the foundation and Love is the action of experiencing Joy.  I have had times of my life, with God, where I was Joyful and showing love but they were very conditional times.  You see as I am growing in Christ and with men of God speaking into my life I am more aware of my blessing blocking.  If you think about it how could God trust me with a wife and children if he cant trust me to turn to him for the small things in life.  I was given a great example by my friend about my walk as well as all Christians.  The example she gave me was most Christians are eating candy, it taste really good and you want it all the time, but the truth is that it is horrible for you.  There is nothing good nutritionally for you.  This is what most of us as Christians do, we know the right language or the right way to look or how to hide in the darkness without anyone knowing.  We get stuck in that routine and we just become more and more numb to life.  I am tired of that, I want to eat healthy and nutritional.  I want to eat the meat and potatoes and vegetables of the word.  When we are eating candy it is easy to give into the temptations of the world and be crushed by them.  I know now to walk in Christ as a Champion means not to be a thumb sucking cry baby who turns to self-righteousness in moments of weakness.  No it is preparing for His Glory to be shown through our life and choices.  The more we turn to Him for everything the less our blessings can and will be blocked! Amen

One Love, One King, All Christ!