Daily Devotionals

Chip Shots from the Ruff of Life

Devotional: August 4th

Here in America we are in a time that is referred to as, "March Madness." It is the time of the year that the National Collegiate Athletic Association stages its annual men's college basketball tournament pitting the 65 best teams in the college ranks against each other for an earned national title as the National Champions of College Basketball.

The March part is that it is contested in the month of March and pretty much consumes sports fanatics for that time period. The Madness part of it is the effort put out by armchair basketball prognosticators who wish to try their hand at predicting the outcome of each game of the tournament. After the two worst teams play each other for the 64th spot in the tournament the teams are aligned into regions and brackets with 16 teams placed in each region and then evaluated according to their strength and given seeds in each region from one to sixteen.

Offices, break rooms, dorm rooms, tennis clubs, bowling leagues and even sewing clubs become the venues of pools for people to test their predictions of the final outcome against those of others. "Bracketology," as it has come to be known, devours the attention of those involved in choosing who they think will win each game. Such predictions are the stuff of frustration as each year there are "bracket busters," games where a highly ranked team gets beaten by a nobody who has played the game of their life.

There is another type of prediction madness that has taken a lot of people by storm. This is of a more serious nature. The predictions of many who have gone before have had calamitous effects. Others were so outlandish as to not even be believed and were, therefore, rightly ignored. There are people who have devoted their lives to predicting the exact time that Jesus Christ our Lord will return from glory for the church.

Such a pursuit is frivolous at best and deadly at worst. People have died, given up their jobs and savings and walked away from life because they believed what someone else said about the coming of the Christ. Trust Jesus' own words on the matter. "But of that day and hour no one knows, no, not even the angels of heaven, but my Father only." Matthew 24:36 Trust Jesus on this one and just trust Jesus. That way you'll be ready when He does come.