Win

Does God have a scoreboard for each of us in Heaven?  Somehow, it’s what I worry about and picture at times.  Maybe you envision the lighted scoreboard, similar to the ones used at a baseball game, that keeps track of which team is winning.  It also can keep track of how many balls and strikes the individual batter has accumulated.  But what about a scoreboard for each time we sin?  You know, If I sin (even a small one) and one “tick” goes in a loss or strike column.  And when I do good works, like doing a good deed for a friend or relative, or any number of other good deeds, one “tick” lands in the win column.  These were my actual thoughts when I was going steady with my first boyfriend in high school, when I was only 16 years old.  For whatever reason, I would think when we had an argument there would be that same “tick” mark in the loss column of our relationship; and as they added up my first love would be in jeopardy.  Wow!  If this same boyfriend, who is now my husband, had been keeping track of all those tick marks for these past 50 years plus, I’d be in big trouble (and so would he)!  But my faith has come a long way since then, both in my relationship with my husband and with God.  To be in the win column in God’s eyes doesn’t require our perfection.  He knows we will fail; but all He desires from us is we never give up running our race with Him.  He sees our hearts and intentions on our attempts, time and time again to win the big prize or score that winning goal of heaven.  You and I can’t earn a win with our earthly actions, no matter how hard we try to impress Him.  Thank goodness my husband and I have never kept score in our marriage, no more than God keeps score on each one of us when we’ve struck out that time.  If we just set our hearts each day to just love Him the best we can is one big win on the scoreboard of life for everyone!

“Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one receives the prize?  So run that you may obtain it.”  1 Corinthians 9:24