What Mudhole are You Stomping In?

The soccer field for my Under-6 team was riddled with mud holes due to Friday night's storm. I learned that the recipe for craziness goes like this: take water and dirt, fold in eleven kids (under age 6) and whip it up into a frenzy, then serve with one soccer ball and two goals. As my previous post mentioned, coaching this age is like herding cats. Believe me, nothing has changed. But, God is teaching me some lessons and taking me deeper in my spiritual walk through these kids.

This picture is one of my players standing in one of the many mudholes during the game. I put him in the game but all he wanted to do was jump in this mudhole. The funny thing was, in all of the commotion of the game, I didn't notice it until the game was almost over and his Mom had to remove him, kicking and screaming, from the mudhole so he could get his post-game snack. What kind of a coach am I? I didn't notice one of my players wasn't participating! To come to think of it, the game was raging all around him and he was content in his mudhole.

I can draw a parallel between this and life can't you? I will be the first one to attest that many times, I get so wrapped up in one thing that I fail to see the bigger picture of what is going on around me. It is in times like this that I realize I am wearing my "spiritual blinders" and haven't completely surrendered to self. When we stomp in the mudhole of self, it causes us to loose site of God's world and his desires for us. When we put our own selfish desires ahead of Him (and we all do), we are rebelling against his will for our lives and missing out on his blessings. I pray today that God will remove me from my mudholes so I can see the bigger picture of what He wants me to do for him, rather than what I want to do for myself. So, I'll leave you with this question: What mudhole are you stomping in today?