During this week of Vacation Bible School, we’re going back into the archives of “Today’s Thought”. Enjoy!

“You must be born again.”
                                                John 3:7

I remember most Saturday afternoons of my youth sitting down to watch T.V. at 4:30 and listening with great anticipation for the phrase which began “spanning the globe to bring you a variety of sports.”

The show was ABC’s Wide World of Sports, and at the end of the opening segment, the announcer said the words “the agony of defeat”, as the film clip showed a horrendous ending to an attempted ski jump.  Everything seemed fine as the skier came down the slope, but then, for what seemed no apparent reason, he fell first backwards, and then head over heels off the side of the jump and continued bouncing down the hill. 

I read something recently that very few people know - the skier chose to fall rather than finish the jump.  Why?  The man explained that the jump surface had become too fast, and midway down the ramp he realized that if he completed the jump, he would land on the flat ground beyond the safe, sloping landing area, and that impact could have been fatal.  So rather than do that, he chose to change his path, and as it was, believe it or not, all he suffered was a very bad headache from his tumble.

To change the course of your life can seem a dramatic, and sometimes painful, thing.  But choosing to make that change is better than a fatal landing at the end.  Make that change and realize the love and promise that waits once you are born again – “the thrill of victory.”

"Father, Help us to make the jumps and changes of life with the assurance that you wait with a new day and a new beginning, free of the pain of the things that used to hold us down and make us fall.  In Jesus' name, AMEN."

Grace,

Rev. Dan