The weather is fantastic this time of year and it is great to be outside. I was playing baseball the other day with my 8 year old daughter Faith and my 6 year old son Luke when an event occurred which gave me further insight into human nature. After the third time that my son hit one into the woods full of briers, I decided that we needed to flip the field around and hit from the deck area into our yard. My son then wanted to run the bases clockwise so that what was previously first base could continue to be first base. After I explained that the base was now third base and that in baseball one runs the bases in a counter-clockwise direction, he proclaimed that he wanted the run in the direction and order that he deemed best - clockwise. This had now become a “teaching moment,” and I began to explain to him about the rules of baseball and that you cannot always do whatever you want. I have reflected upon that conversation with my son, and I realize that his desire to play the game his way is an affliction that besets all of us. We want life to go our way and we get frustrated when we cannot force our version of the rules upon life. The Bible explains it well, “What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don't they come from your desires that battle within you? You want something but don't get it. You kill and covet, but you cannot have what you want. You quarrel and fight. You do not have, because you do not ask God. When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.” (James 4:1-3). During these difficult times we live in, it can be so easy for us to get frustrated and angry because things are not going as we would like. Like my son, we must realize that we cannot always get what we want. Remember to ask God for the things that you need and not for the things you desire. Selah.

In Christ,
Steve