After spending yesterday behind the wheel for well over 9 hours, I got home last night just in time to see North Carolina State choke away a 16 point lead, but not in time to get my Thursday blog posted. And as frustrated as I was about State not being able to hit free throws at the end of the game to pull off the upset, the truth of the matter is that – if they had won – it would have been an upset.
But when Dayton beat Ohio State, and Harvard beat Cincinnati, and Mercer beat Duke, well, those weren’t just upsets. Those were the perfect illustration of what may be one of the most peculiar verses in the Bible.
Catch for us the foxes, the little foxes that ruin the vineyards, our vineyards that are in bloom. (Song of Solomon 2:15)
It seems a little weird to find gardening tips in the Bible, yes? And then to think that somehow it can apply to March Madness may seem even odder, right? But stop and think about this: it’s never really the BIG THINGS that get us, is it? Isn’t it almost always the LITTLE THINGS that trip us up?
This is a principle that applies to so many areas in life, and every time March Madness rolls around and the country jumps on the bandwagon of the latest version of “the little engine that could,” I think of this verse, because of Duke or OSU or Cincy had paid attention to the little foxes, they may still be in the hunt for a national championship.
Consider the following scenarios that I’m pretty sure you would say a BIG FAT NO to:
- Being asked to steal ONE MILLION DOLLARS from the Federal Reserve.
- Waving goodbye to your CRYING WIFE AND KIDS as they watch you jump into a sports car and speed off to a new life with a younger woman.
- Knocking on your neighbor’s front door and then BLOWING HIS HEAD OFF with a shotgun blast when he opens it.
Not only would we all say a hearty NO to those situations, we probably wouldn’t really even be tempted to say YES.
But what about a LITTLE WHITE LIE on your TAX RETURN? Or a QUICK PEEK at a REVEALING IMAGE of a swimsuit model? Or some JUICY GOSSIP about what your NEIGHBOR DID?
So many people say yes to those situations, and even if they don’t ACTUALLY DO them, they’re A LOT MORE TEMPTED than they would have been in the first ones.
The reason is simple: it’s easy to defend against the big attack because we make sure our guard is up. But the smaller ones? The little foxes? The Mercers and the Harvards and the Daytons? Just like Duke, Ohio State and Cincinnati, we let our guard down on the small ones, and the results are so often disastrous.
Here’s the bottom line that we all need to remember. Long before there was Joe Lunardi and Bracketology and Cinderalla stories, God knew how the real game would play out. He knew that we would look to him for the BIG THINGS, and yet never bother to ask him to help us with the LITTLE THINGS.
Sure, he’ll be there to help you find a job when you’re UNEMPLOYED, but if you trust him and ask him to help you develop patience, perhaps you’d find him helping you KEEP THE JOB YOU ALREADY HAVE even though it drives you crazy some days.
“I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.” (John 15:5)
The guy who wrote that was one of the guys that hung with Jesus A LOT. The more he was around Jesus, the more he started to realize that he needed to have Jesus close to him in EVERY SITUATION, whether it was a BIG TRIAL or a LITTLE PILE.
So do we.
Want to make sure that your life doesn’t end up looking like Duke or Ohio State or Cincy? Are you ready to stop losing out on BIG OPPORTUNITIES because you didn’t take care of LITTLE RESPONSIBILITIES?
Stop only asking God for help when you face the BIG GIANTS, and start letting him help you with the LITTLE FOXES, too.
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