Get On The Ball

      A golfer’s ball landed on an extremely large anthill. Instead of moving the ball, he decided to hit it where it lay. After a mighty swing, with dirt and ants flying through the air, the golf ball lay exactly in the same place. He swung three more times with the same results. Two ants had survived the onslaught. One dazed ant asked the other, “What are going to do?” His fellow ant replied, “I don’t know about you, but I’m going to get on the ball!” Getting on the ball, can express escape from several things, but we most probably relate it to the unwanted wrath of a supervisor or boss. It has its own chat-speak acronym, GOTB, which also covers, “Get On The Bus”, meaning get on board or you might get left behind. Anyway, according to the Urban Dictionary, to get “on the ball” is to improve ones present performance. “Tom is too lazy. He needs to get on the ball.” “Whoa! This job is scheduled to be finished by noon tomorrow. I better get on the ball!” As a side note, because it’s NASCAR season, the only sport still true to itself, and where one still gets paid for ones personal performance; I think it was Junior Johnson, NASCAR driver, car owner and crew-chief, who once told driver Darrell Waltrip, “Boy! You best get up on that wheel…” meaning he didn't think Waltrip was using the full potential of the car. He needed to go beyond what he was doing and squeeze every ounce of performance out of the car and himself. I think American’s have lose that will to “get er done” so to speak. We’re waking up victims of the day before and looking for someone to blame for our own incompetence. And if we can’t find someone to blame, alcohol, drugs and violence have become a perfectly reasonable substitute. If, as a country, we don’t get on the ball and lift ourselves out of the selfish irresponsible cesspool we’re in, we’ll not only loose what’s left of the family, we’ll also loose what’s left of God and country. It’s time GOTB.

      An old evangelist was discussing life with another man and how he might improve his lifestyle. “You know” answered the wayward fellow, “For a long time now I’ve been aiming to do that.” “Well” said the preacher, “quit aiming and start shooting.”

      [Jeremiah 8:4-22] No matter how hard some of us might try, we can never get through this life alone. We not only need one another for physical support, we need our Creator for spiritual support. No one knows me, like me, and I don’t want you to know everything about me, because you won’t understand. And, no one knows me like God knows me, and He understands. Most birds sleep perched on a limb and do not fall. When I sleep there is no rhyme or reason as I move around on the bed occupying several positions throughout the night. Birds don’t fall from their perch because of the unique way God made them. The tendons in a bird’s legs are so constructed that when the leg is bent at the knee, the claws grip like a steel trap. The claws will not let go until the knee is unbent. How can we become the person God intended us to be? With a bended knee that will not let go of God. How will we escape the perverse generation in which we live? On bended knee. When the winds of temptation, trial and tribulation blow; when the storms of heartache and illness threaten, bend your knee and grip the grace of God. As we look at the age we are living in, (v.20) “The harvest has past, the summer has ended, and we are not saved.” It’s time to get on the ball, to be responsible for our own actions. It’s time to bend our knees and ask God for guidance and wisdom.