As Robin mentioned in the last post, our world over the last 2 years has been rocked, and not in a good way. But in the last 6 months we’ve been working on moving back toward some normalcy. For instance, we took last year off of youth sports, and now we are getting the boys involved in some extra curricular activities.
Our youngest is old enough to start soccer this year, so we plan on getting him and our oldest plugged in to that. Our oldest signed up for Tae Kwon Doe, Piano, and Basketball. From the beginning of both TKD and Piano, he has been knockin’ it out, figuratively speaking. He just has a natural talent for both. Basketball is another story all together. When we started, he couldn’t dribble, couldn’t catch a pass, and is truthfully not extremely aggressive, but he does have a natural shot. In basketball though, if you can’t dribble or catch a pass, the likelihood of getting a shot is slim. What we’ve learned is with our busy schedule, it is hard to find time for us to work on basketball.
The fact that he doesn’t know how to dribble or catch a pass is on me. I was emotionally scarred in youth sports growing up. I had coaches that played favorites, and cared only about winning, as opposed to truly teaching fundamentals that younger children need to learn. Don’t get me wrong, I like winning, but I like playing even more. So, I let that curb a lot of my enthusiasm for youth sports, I was at the point that I didn’t care if my kids ever played. Now this blog isn’t about the evils of youth sports, in fact overall they are good for kids. This is about my error. You see the error that I found, was that you can’t find time. Finding time means, if there is anything left at the end of the day we’ll use that. What I was seeing was at the end of the day, there was none. It would either be too dark, too cold, or I’d be too tired. Then I had a revelation, I needed to make time, not just find it, because I was becoming skilled at finding more excuses than time.
So Monday hit, we have TKD on Mondays, so it’s easy to say we’ve already done something that day, but I decided to ask if he wanted to shoot hoops when we got home. He said yes. We spent the next hour working on drills. We shot, we laughed, we dribbled, and we passed. He is getting it. He’s working hard, and wants to go do that rather than just sit inside and watch TV. We did the same thing yesterday. I saw that putting in the practice is helping him to develop. It’s all about making time. Then I was hit by another revelation. Am I making enough time for God?
Like I said in the beginning, and what our title entails, we are reinventing the Blackwells, and sometimes I have to reevaluate hard things in my life. I have to admit to mistakes and things that are improperly prioritized. I get up early everyday, I leave the house by 6 so I can be at work by 7, and then I usually get home by about 4:30. Then I leave to go take Dodge to TKD. Then we get home by 6 and usually eat dinner. Play, give baths, and go to bed. I was struggling to find time to spend with God and we know what happens when we try to find time. It sounds coarse and irreverent to say I have to make time for God. A few years back if I read this very blog, and that statement, I would be indignant at someone that “finally decided to make time for God.” As a Christian, we know that God is our reason for life, so why aren’t we making that time? I spend time in worship, I spend time in prayer, but as a human I have to make a conscious effort to spend time in the Bible and alone with God. It’s all about being intentional with our love and walk with God. Just like I have to be intentional with my walk with my sons. I have to teach them the fundamentals of basketball, because they are not going to miraculously wake up one morning and know every skill. I have to be intentional with helping around my home, I can’t say we need to clean the house then go take a nap and expect the cleaning fairies to have made my house spotless. And in the same way, I can’t expect growth in my relationship with God, if I don’t intentionally listen and put time, and effort into what my savior has for me. Hosea 6:3 says it best:
“So let us know, let us press on to know the Lord.
His going forth is as certain as the dawn;
And He will come to us like the rain,
Like the spring rain watering the earth.”
