Daily Devotionals

Chip Shots from the Ruff of Life

Devotional: October 29th

It was another thrilling victory for the Scarlet and Gray. Saturday afternoon my boys from Ohio State beat that "team from up north", as Woody Hayes used to put it. The Ohio State University Buckeyes football team won its rivalry match against the University of Michigan Wolverines. They did it despite two turnovers, two fumbled punt returns that resulted in negative yards and a shanked punt which traveled all of about fifteen yards. Michigan capitalized on those turnovers and the bad punt and scored on all three occasions. But the right team won!

Of course that depends on your perspective. From my perspective the right team won because I was raised in Ohio just a short drive from the Ohio State campus and grew up dreaming of one day running onto the field at the Horseshoe (Ohio Stadium, home of the Buckeyes). The record for the year is not as important as that traditional last game of the season contested on a home and home basis against the Maize and Blue Wolverines. So, as far as I am concerned, the right team won.

"Ah, but you err, O bearded one," say those who live in the shadow of the Big House (home of the Wolverines). "The right team to have won was Michigan." Perspective. Where are you; where are you coming from; where are you headed. It's all perspective. That diffuses the issue of who is right and who is wrong; who is correct to cheer for and who is not. Perspective. Hold on a minute. You mean to say that there is no arena of life wherein there is an absolute solid enough that there is only one vantage point from which what is right IS right?

Swallow that if you wish. I want to show you "a more excellent way." 1 Corinthians 12:31 In our childish imaginations we saw the world from a certain standpoint. We perceived the world to be whatever we needed it to be at whatever time that was required. Our parents held us innocent and opened doors for us to have and to be as we developed. The images of our childhood were largely what we had to have at that particular time in life to make survival of those tender years a possibility.

"When I was child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man I put away childish things. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I also am known." 1 Corinthians 13:11, 12 The time has come that perspective means everything. The time has come that God needs us to be right. That is not a perceived right but an absolute right, because God is absolutely right. 1 Peter 1:13-16