Author: David Opderbeck

School starts tomorrow in our town. This is a bit of a stressful time for us this year. My four year old son is starting a special preschool for kids with learning disabilities. He’s a wonderful, bright, friendly, golden little boy, who happens to have some sort of language delay. His speech, except for a few words, is mostly unintelligible, even to us. He often communicates through gestures. It seems that he has some problems with language reception as well; sometimes he seems not to understand simple statements (such as, “put your shoes on”), though sometimes he does. This can be quite frustrating; it’s given us a much deeper appreciation of families who cope with disabilities, and of the worth of each person who is in some way “disabled.”

We’re not sure what’s causing this delay, although we believe it’s related to seizures he’s periodically experienced. All the medical and neurological tests haven’t shown any particular anomalies (except the seizures themselves). The nuerologist classifies it as unspecified juvenile seizure activity, which often dissipates with age.

We’re grateful that our local school district has an excellent pre-school program that deals with issues such as language delay. We’re nervous, however, because our son is a stubborn little guy, and doesn’t always handle separation well. If he decides he doesn’t want to be in the classroom without mom or dad, it’ll be a long haul.

So, we covet your prayers that our little guy will take to his new school and that his language skills will develop well.

Gracious God,

We pray that you would sustain those who await rescue;

that you would guide and strengthen the rescuers;

that you would comfort those who have suffered loss of loved ones,
homes, possessions;

that you would support those whom you have appointed to preserve
order, and frustrate those who spread disorder;

that you would move and empower your Church to demonstrate your
love to those who are in need;

that you would remind many of the frailty of life and the transience
of this world, that they would turn in repentance and faith to you.

Amen.

I guess I’m working on a little series about “How Life is Like Golf” — see entries one and two for earlier thoughts. So here is today’s entry: “keep your eye on the ball.”

I’m still learning golf. One of my biggest problems is consistency. I’ve gotten pretty good at hitting off the tee, and my iron shots are getting better, but I seldom hit two or three good shots in a row. This was the case on the front nine when I played yesterday. I’d hit a good drive, giving myself a chance to be on the green in two, only to dribble my second shot a short distance or skull it into the trees. By the back nine, I realized what I was doing wrong: I was taking my eye off the ball.

In a good golf swing, your head has some lateral motion, but your eyes need to stay on the ball through the point of contact. If you rotate your head back or forward, you take yourself out of a strong hitting position, and often fail to make solid contact. If you keep your eyes on the ball, you’re more likely to shift your weight properly and hit a strong shot. And, indeed, later in the round, as I focused on this thought, my swings improved, until I finally achieved a straight, long drive, followed by a high, straight 6-iron onto the green (cutting a dogleg, I should add!), and two putts for a par.

There’s a similar principle at work in just about any sport. In fact, you could call “keep your eye on the ball” one of the Cardinal Rules of Sport.

And, the principle carries over into our spiritual lives. I’ve been reminded of this over the past week or so as I’ve been spending more time reading my Bible. I’d gotten busy, and had been neglecting to set time aside for Bible study and prayer. I took my eye off the ball, and the quality of my life began to suffer — my speech wasn’t as controlled as it should have been, my temper was more likely to erupt, my concern for myself was increasing while my concern for others was waning.

There are many good things for us to become involved in, and each of us have gifts to exercise. We’re all capable, through the Holy Spirit, of hitting a brilliant Tiger Woods-like “spiritual golf shot” once in a while. But we all need always to focus first on the basics of following Jesus. We need to come before him regularly in prayer and to regularly and purposefully study his word. We need to keep our eyes on the ball.

I was reading in Titus this morning, and came to this statement in Chapter 2: “You must teach what is accord with sound doctrine.” If you’ve followed some of the things I’ve posted here, you’ll see that I’m at a place in my spiritual life where I feel the need to de-emphasize the details of doctrine and focus more on the Christian “faith story” as it is lived out in the Church. I hope you’ll also see that I don’t disparage the importance of doctrine; it’s more a matter of emphasis. It’s interesting, though, to see how Titus 2 both reinforces and challenges some of my recent thoughts about doctrine.