Good Offense

It’s fall. And in the South, fall means football. My son played football for years and it’s strange now to not have games and practices to keep us busy. But when he did play, some seasons we won almost every game; other seasons I would sit and pray we would at least score. I knew we had no chance of winning, but if we could at least score!

In those seasons, there was a lot of discussion about why we weren’t winning. Parents blamed coaches, coaches blamed players, offense blamed defense, defense blamed offense—and you would invariably hear—the best offense is a good defense. This made no sense to me. I think the best offense is a good offense.

Great defense protects, but offense takes ground. Sometimes we can get into places where everything around us is so scary that we hide under our shields of  “faith” and wait for Jesus to come for us. Now, He will always come for us, and sometimes it’s all we can do to sit still and hide under our shields, but we weren’t meant to live in those places. We are overcomers. We are victorious.  And sometimes that hiding place of original refuge becomes a place we get stuck in fear.

We are not meant to sit around and just wait for Jesus to come back; we are meant to actively bring His kingdom into every area of our lives.

My son always wanted to play offense. He was a running back, and he was fast. There was nothing he loved more than gaining yards and making his way to the end zone. The reason he loved it and the reason he was good at it was partly because he believed he could do it. During his JV season, he had new coaches who had no idea how fast he was, and they refused to put him in. He was small, and they were afraid he would get hurt. But my son knew what he was capable of, and he would stand on the sidelines next to the coach who was calling the plays, and ask the coach to put him in—over and over and over. During one particularly brutal game, the coach finally relented (only because the running back he was using was making no progress.) He sent my son in, and that was the end of it. Brandt was the starting running back from that game on.

Jesus wants us to be convinced we have what it takes to bring His kingdom into every area of our lives. Not because we are the fastest or the smartest or the most capable—but because we are His. We don’t have to live small lives or fear-filled lives. The God we serve wants to show up in us and through us. He is bigger than our mistakes; He is bigger than our fears. He has a purpose and a plan for us that includes victory—it includes us taking ground.

There are victories you are meant to win for the generations coming after you. Don’t give up now. It may be scary; it may be hard; it may even feel like you are in a losing season, but every piece of ground you take, counts. Every yard matters. Even if you have to take it inch by inch. Every time we show up and stay in the fight, we gain ground. Every time we believe He is who He says He is, and we are who He says we are, we gain ground. We are bringing His kingdom.