"It's Something We Are Praying About!"

We are moving as coaching families do and my son was asked what the mascot was for our new school.  My son looked down and sheepishly said, "They are the Demons but it's something we are praying about."  And it is. None of us like the Demon mascot.  We don't say the "Demon" part in our house and I've even considered not buying any shirts with the mascot on it and plan on wearing a cross necklace to all the games!  Some may think it's just a mascot but for a coaching family it can certainly turn into more than that.

So like my son said, "It's something we are praying about!" And in my prayers, God has been showing me areas in my life where I am off-balanced.  I've been spending more time in the word and listening to sermons online to get my balance back.  I've started a diet to lose weight to get my eating habits back in balance.  I've started changing my attitude about somethings and try to lighten up a little more with the kids.  I had no idea all of this was stemming from praying about our "demon" problem but then out of nowhere God showed me it was related. He showed me our family tends to get out of balance with a lot of things and one of those is football.  Football becomes an idol to us at times.  Every coaching family knows that when a sports season starts things change and are different but there is an extreme to the time, the effort, and the importance the entire family puts into it and our family for the past several years have lived in the extreme.  God has placed my husband to coach the Demons to serve as a very visible reminder of what is truly important to us and so that we don't allow the Demons to become an idol in our family and put us on watch so that we can guard our heart against it.  If we were the Eagles, Lions, Bears, Bulls, or Thunder it wouldn't get our attention like this does and the team could certainly once again become an idol in our life. But because it's the "Demons" and it makes me cringe it puts the decision front and center of who are we putting first, God or our team the Demons.  

Our family never tosses God out of our lives but we don't always put Him first.  We still go to church during the football season, pray, read the Bible, serve at church, and can look like God is #1 by all of things we do and even say but our time, our efforts and our heart can belong to the team. The AP polls could say God is our #1 but God can take the poll of our heart and see that He doesn't always hold that #1 spot.  So as God calls us to go where the "Demons" are I can see His guiding hand.  After all even the demons believe their is one God (James 2:19). It will be up to us to show our Demons it's not enough to believe there is a God but to show our faith through our works of God being first in our life and in heart and from there everything else will flow.