Cheering Us On

By Cathy Irvin
Staff Writer

CBN.com - These are exciting days for me. I recently went to a children’s football game where my little great granddaughter was cheering. This was her very first game. I couldn’t take my eyes off her, since she is so little and so cute. She was all dressed up in her outfit, team color ribbons in her hair, pom-poms on her shoes, and a larger set of pom-poms in her hands. Mind you, she did not say or do much. But her coach told me that as long as she had on her uniform, she could just look pretty for this game.

I thought of how God was like that coach, saying, It is OK, child. You will learn. But for now, just be a team player. I know He is cheering me on every step of the way to stay in the game. I think of life like that field -- a big game and the saints in heaven are like those cheerleaders, cheering us on as we race to win.

When the game was over, she rode back to her house with me and she started saying, “Set, Set, Ready!” while I hollered back like the cheerleaders and said, “OK!” They say this before every new cheer they start. She must have repeated this phrase at least 10 times. She did get that part of what the leader of the cheer says.

I tried to explain to her, “You have to learn the cheers first before the coach will let you be one of the leaders.” Isn’t that like us? We want to lead first before we follow. The Lord is teaching us how to hear His voice and instructing us on what to do. I went on to tell her she would learn these cheers if she paid attention to the coach. She frowned and folded her arms. Her stubbornness reminds me of myself sometimes. We all react the same way.

God is patient. He wants us to be more than spectators. His expectation is for us to be participants and to follow His instructions so we can lead others to follow Him as we follow Christ.

If you’re a new believer in Christ, God is saying, It is OK, child. You will learn. But for those of us who have been in the game a while, He says, Ready?

Our response should be, “OK!”

Therefore, we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us (Hebrews 12:1, NKJV).

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