Soccer & Spiritual Maturity…
I was reflecting this morning after a great weekend with my family. We officially started our t-ball season with our son and soccer with our two oldest girls. As the coach for one team and the assistant for the other, (both an excellent way to reveal my issues!) I can proudly say that we won both of our games. Errr…I mean we played hard and had fun.
I was thinking about some of the ways we interact with the kids playing sports and how we interact with the people of God as we work out our salvation in Christian community. One aspect that I noticed is how we cheer for our kids. Cheering for them is not the issue. Some parents get so intense about a game that they can get brutal with their words, yelling at their kids to do better or even degrading them when they mess up. However at my kids age, it seems to be the complete opposite. One of the girls was playing goalie and let the ball roll into the goal, and her parents would say “you’re doing good out there.” Another girl would chase after the ball only to run completely past it and a parent would say “way to run hard.” One of the girls tried to kick a ball in the goal and completely whiffed the ball and I heard a parent say “good job.” What!?!? I think you get the point. We had girls messing up as they try to learn the game of soccer, and parents cheering for them even if they were doing terrible. As I mentioned previously, I am a firm believer in affirming our kids and encouraging them often. But I have to wonder, have we moved to the point that we are actually saying it is ok for them to do poorly. I am willing to admit, that maybe I am being a little harsh here…
What about the process of spiritual maturity? I wonder if this over-encouragement, call it the American Idol syndrome, is actually doing damage to the spiritual maturity of immature children of God, despite their physical age. Scratch that, I am convinced it is. Showing one another grace is an outflow of the Gospel and is an indicator we are grasping the power of the Gospel to overwhelm our failures. But being honest about our sin condition and holding each other accountable with truth is also an outflow of the Gospel as well. These are not in opposition to each other like we sometimes mistakingly believe. We must hold both of these in tension, so we can call ourselves and others to live a life of obedience to Christ while being gracious to forgive just as Christ forgave us. It is not productive or helpful to only encourage while ignoring sin. Just as it is not biblical to deal harshly with sin without being gracious or remembering the power of the cross to overcome it.
There are hundreds of scriptures that speak to this. A few to consider: Jesus was full of grace and truth John 1:14. He was so gracious that the worst of sinners wanted to be near to him, but so truthful that the most religious was cut to the heart by his words. Colossians 3:12-16 reminds us to love each other and forgive as Christ did, and part of this is to admonish one another. In Hebrews 10:24 we are called to “spur one another on towards love and good deeds.” Spur does not give off the idea of being comfortable, does it? And one final one from Proverbs 27:6, wounds from a friend can be trusted, but an enemy multiplies kisses.
Only the Gospel can give us the freedom to be humbly gracious and brutally honest at the same time. Who is doing this for you? Who are you doing this for?
NICKSHOCK.US 