JB is playing soccer this year. They’ve won all of their games so far despite JB running around like an airplane on the field. We were playing a team the other day and I saw a friend of mine from high school. His son was on the opposing team. He is a doctor now and his boys are the same age as mine. He was sitting on a cooler outside the fence. I was so saddened by this. You see, he has had an affair with a girl who worked in his office. He had it all, by world’s standards — a new practice, a repectable position in the community, a wife, and 2 beautiful boys. Now, he sits outside the fence. Was it worth it? Were a few nights of passion worth losing your wife? Your respect? Your sons? Was it worth having to now sit outside the fence?

I thought how equally that phrase works in our Christian lives. Sometimes, we don’t want to give ourselves fully to God because we will have to give something up. We have certain addictions, if you will, that we don’t want to let go of and be in complete right relationship with God. So, we are Christians – saved by grace, but we sit outside the fence. God is calling us and yet we don’t enter in. Is it worth it? Is it worth being outside the fence? How wonderful it is to be right there watching, cheering, participating from with in. Yet, occasionally we all find ourselves outside the fence clinging to something that can’t love us back and longing to be where the real action is. How wonderful and merciful God is that the gate is always open. I pray for my friend that he will find that gate open and once again be in right relationship with his wife and his children — and especially our Savior