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I am a baseball fan and have lived in Dallas all my life. I sat on the third base line of the second game the Texas Rangers every played in Arlington. I have been a fan for now over thirty years. I pull for them no matter if they win or lose, they are my team. Of course if you know anything about baseball you know with the Rangers there is a lot more loses than wins.

The Rangers have never won a championship and have rarely ever gotten close. Yet every year at this time new hope arrives. The Rangers head out to their spring training destination in Arizona with a new set of players and some different coaches and well everything looks so very good.

Each new player is going to add to the piece of the puzzle that will get them in a championship, we fans just believe that. Everyone involved with the team is upbeat and positive. There record is 0 and 0, they have yet to loose a game, of course they have yet to play a game, that’s beside the point. That is the beauty of it all, last years record as miserable as it might have been is gone, cleaned right off the slate. That is old news, everyone now is looking ahead. Nobody really knows what the future holds but everyone involved thinks it will be better than last year and who is to tell them differently.

Let’s face it we all need a little ‘spring’ in our life every once in a while. We need to be able to wipe the slate clean and start all over again. For some of us it has been years of losses and bad records. You don’t have to try to remember your seasons of lose do you? Most people are glad to remind you of what a poor record you have. As the losses build up so does our discouragement. As we grow more discouraged our ability to put the past in the past diminishes and we end up thinking we are, well for a lack of a better word, loosers.

Perhaps loosers in the worlds eyes, but not so with God! He is the king of Spring! He looks out there and He sees you and will I am telling you he sees a champion. He sees potential, He knows what your strengths are, goodness He gave them to you. Does He know your losses, sure He was there nothing got by Him. For Him they were not loses but lessons. He was using those to teach you, to prepare you for your coming days or even to get your attention. God wasn’t looking for the winter He was looking to the spring when all things are new again.

Let me ask you something, are you living in the ditch of past seasons of defeat? If so let me ask you another question, why? If there was sin in those defeats, repent and move one, He is the God of second chances. If there was a sudden turn of events that seemed to be a loss, turn the events over to God and look ahead, God is there, what’s done is done. God has a purpose and plan, stay busy with Him as you watch the plan unfold. You might just be surprised how God will use your loss. Last time I checked God was still undefeated, His plans and purposes always come to be.

Right now on March the 6^th the Texas Rangers are in first place, and so are you if you have turned your life over to the King of Spring, Jesus Christ.

Scripture: Philippians 2:12&13 and 3:13&14

“Therefore, my dear fiends, as you have always obeyed-not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence-continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose.”

“Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.”

Prayer: Lord help us to follow the path to you that leads us from discouragement to hope, from defeat to victory. We thank you for your love and we ask these things in the precious name of Christ.