Don’t take your eye off the ball

 I spent a lot of days in the back yard with one of my granddaughters teaching her to hit a softball. I would work with her on the basic fundamentals associated with hitting, but the most important teaching was always and continuously “keeping her eye on the ball.” I would pitch, she would hit, and my wife would catch the balls. Our ritual was always “eyes on the ball” because you can’t hit what you can’t see. Our Christian walk is much like this teaching mentality except it’s more associated with spiritual battles rather than softball.

In the book of Judges, we learn of a young man with a vision problem. His name is Samson, and the enemy was finally able to trap and subdue him and immediately gouged out his eyes. This was not abnormal for the time concerning treatment of an enemy prisoner because you can’t fight against what you can’t see and identify. However, this is not where Samson lost his sight. He lost his strength and Godly power when he lost his eyes, but he lost his sight much earlier in chapter 14. We read that Samson went down to a place called Timnah and saw one of the daughters of the Philistines. He wanted her; he sent his parents to get her as his wife because he saw her and made the decision that she was right for him. He lost his sight the day he saw what was forbidden.

Samson created his own doctrine when he made the choice to follow what was right in his own eyes over what was God’s vision for and through him. Later, we find him “vision impaired” again with a new Philistine suitor named Delilah. This time she was the one who wore him down. She begged, nagged, and was relentless in finding the secret to his great strength until one day he found himself in her lap. Samson had substituted his vision in place of God’s vision and had become so comfortable with the enemy that he allowed himself to be lulled to sleep to the voice of the Lord. The more comfortable we become with the enemy, the louder his voice will be. Samson had gotten to the point where Delilah’s voice was louder than God’s.

The enemy was after Samson’s strength, and he took it by compromising his vision. The worst part of this story was the fact that Samson had become so blinded with comfort that he didn’t know she had cut his hair, and he also didn’t know the Lord had left him. He took his eye off the ball and lost his sight, his strength, the power of God through him and his dignity; and it all started when he determined in his heart what was right for him in his own eyes.

For some who are reading this, you may be on a path toward destruction. Maybe you’re being lulled to sleep to the voice of God. Maybe you’ve taken your eye off the ball. I know a guy and I would love to introduce you to him this Sunday at Christpoint Church, on Liberty Square, in Sparta. We have three service times - 8:30 a.m., 10 a.m., and 11:30 am. We’re real people, living real lives, serving a real God. Welcome home.