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Now all of my hard and fast rules come with good reasons behind them, no doubt this one does as well. First many times when I am at a professional sporting event it is because someone has given me tickets. This year my company gave me and my nine year old tickets to a game in a luxury suite. Well we got there early and stayed until they turned out the lights, it was the best seat in the house and I sure was not going to leave early. Hey I ate their food and drank their cold drinks and generally was big timing it and you know how it goes; how often does the little guy get to big time it. I would have been nuts to leave one minute before my time was up. Hey Cinderella is not leaving the ball until midnight, I guarantee you that.

My second reason and the main reason for this rule is that I have played enough sports to know that anything can happen. One bounce of the ball, one great play, one serious mistake and a sure loss can be turned into victory. It happens all the time.

This week I am watching a game with a group of friends from the church and our team is just getting whipped up and down the field. Slowly the crowd starts to dwindle down until there are about four faithful fans left with about 15 minutes to go in the game. We watch a little longer and decide this is hopeless so we all agree; me included to take it to the house. So I say my goodbyes and get in the car. I listen to the game in the car and it is the same hopeless situation. By the time I get home there are just 5 minutes left and I don’t even bother turning on the TV. The next morning I get up and head to work and start listening to the radio and much to my surprise that team that was hopelessly defeated with no chance for victory, had won the game.

I was disappointed in myself for giving up on my team. Where was my faith? I at least should have been a good enough fan to watch them to the finish. You see I know this; the game is not over until the final gun sounds.

I know this about life as well; it is not over until the Lord calls us home. We as humans tend to write people off. Declare that they will never be used for God. We see the losses keep mounting up, the bad decisions they keep making and we declare that they will never be good for anything. We even write ourselves off sometimes. That’s too bad.

After a while we start to loose faith in people. Life is like my fellowship last week, when times are hard some will stick with you until halftime, others will go until the third quarter and even some will make it until the game is almost over but only one stays with you to completion and that would be God. We see the life as it is being lived out now, forgetting that there is still so much more to come. We judge on current results but thankfully God has a bigger picture and is a lot more patient.

The thought today is don’t give up. Not on other people or yourself. One softly spoken word, one requested prayer, one hand reaching out in love or one word of encouragement and God can turn it around in a heart beat.

We miss out on so much when we give up. We miss out on the opportunity to be Christ to people who really need it. We miss out on seeing God do his wonderful work that only he can do. We miss out on growing our faith by seeing God keep his promise to always be faithful.

The great ones play the game to the finish. God is the greatest, let’s give Him and others a chance, stick it out to the end and enjoy the victorious finish.

** You may feel like you are hopelessly defeated today with no chance of victory, remember today is just one day, the game is not over and God is not through with you or your situation. Remember God has some hard and fast rules as well, and one is. He never gives up on you.

Scripture: Philippians 1:6, “being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.”

Prayer: Dear Lord, help us to hang in there with others and ourselves. When we are tempted to quit help us to lean on you. Today perhaps there is a friend who is reading this, they need to feel your love in an extra special way this day, may they feel your loving presence right now, in Christ Name Amen.