She was crying on the soccer field!
My very good friend told me this story about her youngest great-granddaughter and her first experience playing soccer:
Little Kelsie had gone to soccer practice and all the children had been given a soccer ball. They were told to put it on the ground in front of them and kick it down the field. That sounded all right to Kelsie, and she got the hang of it pretty well.
Then came their first game.
Soon she was sitting on the soccer field, her eyes filled with tears, bent over and sobbing.
“What’s wrong, honey?”
“They won’t give me the ball! No one will!”
My friend walked the upset little girl to the stands, and they sat down to talk a few minutes.
“They won’t let me play, Nana,” Kelsie said sorrowfully.
“When you play soccer, everyone tries to get the ball and kick it to the goal,” my friend explained. “They try to take the ball away from each other.”
“But they won’t let me have the ball,” she mourned.
“That’s the way you play, everyone tries to get the ball!” My friend repeated.
“But, Nana, you’re supposed to share!”
“This is just not right!” Kelsie continued.
Life and sports, too, can be confusing!
What are the rules? What is the goal? What is it we are trying to do?
The Bible is our book to find out what is going on in life. It tells us what to do and how to live our best life in Christ. Do you help others find out what it says?
Proverbs 22:6 tells us, “Train up a child in the way he should go, even when he is old he will not depart from it.”
Deuteronomy 6:6-7 says: “And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise.”
The Ten Commandments are a good start to teaching children right from wrong and how to make wise choices. The Gospel of Christ Jesus is critical to children learning how to live their lives and goals to have, to know that there is a real heaven and a real hell, that they have a choice about their destination, and that to follow Christ is the way to find eternal life and the best earthly life — that’s what’s important.
Galatians 6:7-8: “Do not be deceived, God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap.”
Life is not a game: know how to live it!
