Here I Stand!

Those of you who know me, know that I am a HUGE Arkansas Razorback fan. I was in graduate school there when we won the national championship in basketball in 1994. I went to the the Final Four in Seattle in 1995 right after I had turned in my dissertation. I wear Razorback sweaters, Razorback jackets, I wear a Razorback watch, I have a stuffed Razorback in my office that plays the fight song, I drive down for at least one Razorback football game every year, (this is the first year in a long time that I wasn't able to get down), if you cut me I would bleed red (what a minute, I would bleed red anyway!). So a few years ago when Nolan Richardson was still coaching basketball there, he made a comment that he never watched game film from his opponents. His comment was, "We're going to do what we do anyway, so I don't watch what my opponents are doing." At first blush, I cringed. I couldn't believe he would make such an asinine statement. Not knowing what your opponent would do????
It hasn't been until the last several years I've come to appreciate his comments. He wasn't saying he didn't care what his opponents did, he was just sure of what he was going to do.
We talk a lot about baby boomers, generations X'ers, modern, pre-modern, and post-modern, and just about any other topic you want to talk about, but have we put the stake in the ground and said, "This is what being a Christian is all about. Do what you want. I'm going to serve God regardless." Does that mean we don't want to know about all of the above I just talked about? Of course not. But we need to spend more time being who we are. Perhaps we have a hard time with this because we have been too affected by the culture around us. Perhaps we struggle because we look too much like the world. Maybe we have forgotten what it means and what it looks like to be a disciple of Jesus.
So here I stand. I just want to be a Christian. I just want to serve Him come what may. I love the statement made by Jim Eliot when he said, "He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose." If you don't know who Jim Eliot is, go see "The End of the Spear." Have a great day. JW