The Cheap Seats

Lately I’ve spent a few nights watching some high school basketball. I really enjoy the game as it’s, at least to me, very pure at the HS level. The kids are taught to play the right way and they work together as a team. What I like about it best is you really get a good look from the stands at a team’s strengths and weaknesses, at least if you know what you are looking at.

That leads me to today’s point: Often a weakness can easily be seen from the cheap seats.

Let me explain. As I watch the game I often find players on a team that seem a tad weak at one kind of defense or another. What I really love is when the coach for one of the teams sees the same thing and starts to exploit that weakness. The coach will direct his/her team to do things that will take full advantage of that weakness. They’ll keep attacking it until the other team makes an adjustment. In fact, to me that is the true beauty of the game, the chess match the coaches play in trying to gain their team an advantage, causing a disadvantage to the other team.

I mention all of this because many of us have weaknesses that are continually being exploited in our Christian walk. The devil attacks us over and over again the same way, and we fail to make the adjustment. Then, when we finally do adjust, the devil looks for another weakness to exploit. This is part of the day-to-day battle that we must fight, continually adjusting our weaknesses in order to keep the devil out of our lives.

How is your ability at making adjustments? Do you allow a weakness to continually be attacked, or do you work to keep that from happening? Do you even know what your weaknesses are, or do you need someone else sitting in the cheap seats to help you see what you are missing? If you know the weaknesses and keep adjusting, good for you! If you need help seeing what is happening, then find a friend, prayer partner, spouse, and pray about it. Find the weaknesses and adjust. Your spiritual life will be stronger because of it.