The Blindside

A quarterback’s worst nightmare is to hear from behind the sound of a gargantuan defensive end an instant before making contact. The impact is sudden, unexpected and often leads to severe injury. The downside of playing quarterback is “the blindside”.

But football players aren’t the only ones who take unexpected hits. Every day ordinary people throughout the world are blindsided by pain, suffering and problems of every size and shape. It happens so frequently you’d think we would come to expect such things. And yet, every time it happens, we are taken by surprise. We express our shock with statements like, “I never thought anything like this would happen to me?”

Jesus warned about having unrealistic expectations about life. He openly said there are going to be a lot of problems to be faced in this life. And that is why he told his followers to pray, “And deliver us from evil.” That each of us will have to face seasons of suffering, should come as no surprise. The world in which we live is not as God created it. Evil abounds in the place of God’s love. That’s why the best preparation for life’s blindsides is the prayer “deliver us from evil.”

Just as you don’t want to be unprepared for Hurricane Douglas, join us for one of our weekend services so you aren’t blindsided by Hurricane Life.

Worship service times: Saturday: 6:00 pm, Sunday: 9:00 am & 10:30 am.

Normally, our reaction to an invitation is positive. We think of invitations to a dinner or a party or a wedding. What’s great about an invitation is that it is a request for us to participate, but only by our choice. We are usually not forced to either accept or turn down an invitation. It’s up to us.

After reading the title of this article, you might have thought it to be a little strange because temptation is seen as a way to get us to do something evil or diabolical, rather than an invitation. And yet, it is in every sense of the word. When we are tempted, we are not forced into any kind of behavior. What we choose to do is entirely up to us. We can embrace the temptation, or we can walk away from it.

What is essential to remember about temptation is that it is an invitation to live without God. It is an appeal to our egos to take control of our lives without having to answer to anyone or anything. To most of us, that’s very attractive. “No one telling us what to do! Living large! Taking control of our destiny!´ But it is all a deception, separating us from the One for whom and by whom we were created. Apart from God, our lives lose their value, purpose and sense. We become, as the old song goes, “Dust in the wind.”

If you sense it’s time to rethink some of the invitations you’ve been accepting lately, join us for one of our weekend services. The invitation of Jesus Christ will help you see which other invitations you should accept or turn down.

Worship service times: Saturday: 6:00 pm, Sunday: 9:00 am & 10:30 am.