Could I follow you around today?

Okay, confession time, I'm a Cowboys fan. Always have been. Always will be. So with such a crummy record this year I watch the Facebook posts about the Cowboys and often read the little blurbs to see what's up with my team. Today, this one got me thinking about the Christian life.

Apparently, Wade Phillips (while he was still the head coach) got NFL officials to come to the 'Boys practices. Jason Garrett has continued this practice during practice and has been able to see some improvement. You can read the story for yourself here, but that's not what was of interest to me. Garrett (the new Cowboys head coach) said, "we ask them to get involved. They have to be active. They're not just standing there watching practice. And they understand that, and a big thing for them is not only telling us what a penalty is, but also communicating with the coach and the player as to why it was a penalty and how you can do something maybe differently to prevent that penalty from happening."

What a concept! Dallas has brought in league officials to not only watch the practices but become an integral part of the practice! They don't just say, "yep, that was a penalty." They stop the flow and tell the coach AND the player why it would have been a penalty and what the player could do differently to avoid having a penalty called later. These officials have taken an "active" roll in the practices.

How would you like to have your preacher follow you around all day? Not only pointing out the things that you did or said that would qualify as a "foul" but helping you to know how you could avoid those same mistakes in the future. Wouldn't that be beneficial to your spiritual life? I know it would be to mine!

Often times we don't have a problem noticing WHEN we fail in our Christian Walk, but the problem comes in how to avoid the failure in the first place. We get so used to doing life in a certain way that it just becomes how we function. Normal. We can't see any other way to do it, so we continue to get into the same problems over and over again. Then we wonder why we can't get ahead.

Perhaps this is why the Bible tells us to confront each other when we see a failure, to throw a flag and stop the game. But we need to be able to say, this is what happened and this is how to avoid it in the future. The only way to do that is to practice. We are told to practice the commands of God. In fact, Jesus said that He would send the Holy Spirit who would, "teach you all things and remind you of everything I said to you." The Holy Spirit is like God's official who is watching our lives, not only convicting us of the sin we commit, but He's there to help us know how to avoid the same mistake in the future!

Are you tired of getting penalized in life? Are you mad at God for calling fouls? Do you feel like you get ahead only to be called back? Well, have you heard the saying that insanity is doing the same thing over and over, expecting a different result every time? It's time we as believers took advantage of the official God has given us. He will convict us of sin and point us toward true righteousness. Let the official come to your practice. Listen to Him and do what He says. That's the only way to get a different result. That's the only way to improve your game.