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Fall has always been a wonderful season for me. I love the leaves crunching and the beauty of the harvest sunsets. I enjoy sweatshirts and sweatpants and the warmth of an outdoor fire. In fact, campfires are one of my favorite things. I love the sound, the smell and the fellowship that usually comes with a good campfire.
Recently, this short, yet powerful, verse from Proverbs caught my attention. Proverbs 26:20a says, “Without wood, fire goes out.” Don’t you just love how the Bible can be so simple, yet so profound?
When I read this verse, I thought, “Duh! Of course a fire dies out without wood.” And then the Lord rumbled inside my heart. He seemed to ask, “What are you fueling your fire with?” It was a great moment of conviction.
During the 2008 Olympics, NBC aired a special segment on the diet of record-breaking swimmer Michael Phelps. It was incredible! They said that he tries to eat 8,000 to 10,000 calories a day. That is as much as I eat in five days. But when Phelps is in heavy training and competition, his body needs all the fuel it can get.
Allow me to make a quick analogy. As Christians, we’re in a daily spiritual battle, facing tough temptations, situations, interactions, and decisions. It’s our own version of competition, yet there’s a lot more at stake than a sporting event. The eternity of souls is up for grabs, and God has called us to compete for them.
Scripture is the basis of our faith. But, sometimes, I think we get so caught up in life that we start to look at familiar verses and almost label them as cliché. As sad as that sounds, we hear verses like John 3:16, Philippians 4:13 and Jeremiah 29:11 and simply pass them by or say to ourselves, “Oh, I’ve heard that a thousand times.” While that may be true, it doesn’t take away the relevance of Scripture!
A high school coach of mine once said that when things go wrong, it is important to go back to the basics—to the foundation of the game—and to re-establish a routine. He was talking about softball, but I think this relates to our faith in a profound way.
The foundation for success in any sport relies primarily on the mastery of fundamentals. Champion athletes spend time perfecting their skills by focusing on fundamentals. At times it may seem trite, but to error fundamentally could produce devastating miscues! It doesn’t matter at what level you compete, ignore the fundamentals and your performance will suffer.
Cal Ripken Jr., who broke Lou Gehrig’s consecutive-game record (Gehrig’s 2,130 to Ripken’s 2,632 straight games in the lineup), credits his father, Cal Ripken Sr. for the mentoring, coaching, and example to break the record. Junior remembers that his father had many mottoes and pronouncements. One of his favorite sayings was: “Do two million little things right, and the big things take care of themselves.” His point was to take pride in the fundamentals.
All of us face the game of life each day with its tests and temptations. Being a Christian doesn’t guarantee that we will never have problems. But as Christians, we have biblical guidelines and fundamentals to help us have victory over our trials.
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