Stepping Out In Faith Toward Your Life's CallingExemplo

Seeing Others As God Sees Them

I can’t even tell you how many times I have heard my husband, a high school football coach, talk about one of his players who has “heart”.  I have learned that when he describes his players with that word it means the following:

·  The player performs better than his physical attributes should allow

·  The player considers his teammates and is not selfish

·  The player gives much effort

·  The player is coachable

One of the things that upsets my husband the most is when a player has tremendous physical attributes, but no heart.  Contrary to that, one of the most rewarding things to my husband is to see a young athlete turn from being a player with no heart to a player with heart.  That seems to only happen when those players realize who God is and who they are with God as their Lord and Savior. 

A couple of years ago, I had someone in leadership say to me, “You and your husband just need to realize that there are some of those young men that aren’t worth saving.”  Oh, I’m sure he didn’t mean it like it came out of his mouth, but it crushed me.  I came home and told my husband what was said to me.  My husband looked at me like he had just heard something ludicrous and said, “Who decides who is worth saving?”  

We both knew the answer to that question and it was not either of us.  From experience over the years of working with these young athletes, we realized that there would be those who we would pour into, with no avail.  Our hearts would continue to rejoice with some, but we would cry over seeing some choose a life of deception that would lead to destruction.  

Questions to ask yourself:

Have you been rejected by someone because you were different than them?  If so, how did that affect you?

Have you ever pushed someone aside because they were different than you?  If you took the time to get to know them better, do you think you would have responded differently?

Are there people in your life who you are thankful you didn’t give up on?