God is working it out HIS way

I shared a short devotional with the football team yesterday during teh team meal at Pedro Menendez. I love these guys and I have enjoyed being with the seniors for 4 years now and it was our last team meal. They won the North Florida Bowl and went out on top and that is all you can ask for, or is it. When I started at Pedro about 7 years ago I was excited. I called the then coach Keith Cromwell and talked to him about coming on as a chaplain for the team. I would show up at practices with Gatorade and cookies(back when I could afford those things lol) and prayed with them after practices. THe first game we had after that time I shared with the team during the team meal that we would pray together right before we went into the game. So that evening I had them all take their helmets off, take a knee and grab a hand. We prayed the Lord's Prayer together. Sadly, there were a handful of coaches and less than a handful of players who knew it. Now, before the games our new coach Patrick Turner kneels in the middle of them and prays, and they say the Lords prayer together and every single player and coach knows every word. It's my favorite part of high school football Friday nights. Nothing better than a group of young teenaged boys kneeling and praying together, and quoting scripture at that. Our Father which art in Heaven, Hallowed be thy name, Thy kingdom come thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil for thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen I explained to the team that I strive to be the least religious person you can find. I hate religion and all that it stands for. To think that a group of rules and regulations decide how and what and when I worship God. No Sir! I worship God all day long, I talk to Him, live for Him and love Him with all I have. Because I have a relationship with the Creator of all things, and the person who sent His Son to die on a cross for my sins and my eternity. I have a RELATIONSHIP, and that relationship stops me from wanting to sin. Saves me from temptation on a daily basis and renews me every morning. And because every one of them has prayed the Lord's prayer, every single one of them has already had their first conversations with God, it's all a piece of cake from there. Then I shared with them that God is at work all around them, even when we can't see it or acknowledge it He is working on us and through us in ways we can't even imagine. God's love and grace and mercy and protection are all around us all through out the day. Illustraton: A young soldier was in the jungles and ended up getting away without being captured. He knew that the majority of his comrades were all either killed or captured. SO he found a hole in the ground like I little cave and he burrowed his way to the very back of it and hid there. For an entire day he hid and prayed that God would save him, that God would rescue him and that his enemies would forget about him. The second day he was there he could here the enemy troops getting closer and closer. THey were closing in on him and his prayer remained God rescue me God save me. Soon he realized they were right above the hole he was in, he then told God I guess this is it, you didn't protect me and you didn't hear my prayers for the past 30 hours. As the first soldier stepped over the hole another soldier stopped and looked down the hole and then walked on. The young man could not believe it, they had walked right past and ignored him. He waited a few hours and then decided to sneak his way up to the top to try and figure out what had happened. As he climbed he saw that a few spiders had built the most elaborate spider webs all accross the top of the hole. That's it the enemy soldiers had seen the webs and assumed no one had passed through there and walked right on by. You see when we pray, God goes to work. And when God goes to work He does things His way which is always the right way. Thanks for reading and have a great weekend!