By Scot Thigpen
Run the Play
The game is on the line. The stadium is filled to capacity with onlookers to see what will happen on this critical 4th down with 5 yards to go. It’s not exactly life and death but it sure feels that way. A timeout is called so the quarterback can talk things over with the head coach. Years of preparation and study have been put in for moments like this.
The quarterback briefly glances over the coach’s shoulder and sees his family on the front row, looking on with all the others. Over 70,000 spectators will witness what is about to happen, including little boys and girls in the crowd, wearing the jersey of the quarterback because he is a role model.
“What do you want to do here?” asks the head coach. Wisely, the quarterback answers him back saying, “It doesn’t matter what I want to do—I am going to do what you tell me to do.” That’s all the discussion there was.
The head coach pulls out a lengthy playbook that they were both very familiar with. He flipped to a particular page, pointed to the play, nodded his head in affirmation and sent him out to run the play. The quarterback hustled back out on the field but hesitated just a second and looked back to the coach. The confidence of the coach was resounding as he recognized the hesitation. He had seen it before.
Coach knew how to win the game more than anybody. He is pleased with the faithfulness on display, but also knows that his player is merely human. But he knows the playbook has proven to be perfect and the play will work. He makes eye contact with him and simply says, “Trust me—run the play”.
Such is the daily life for a follower of Jesus Christ. Every day we are faced with decisions that aren’t life and death, but they sure feel that way at times, don’t they? These decisions have consequences not only to us but to the spectators as well. Prayer is the timeout. How many mistakes are made because we fail to take a timeout to pray about things? We have choices.
Laying aside our own personal wills and submitting to the authority and will of our Father is indeed wise. Faith, trust, and obedience to the Lord bring victory. Spending lots of time in the Bible prepares and directs our decisions.
Recognize that there is but one playbook that we follow as Christians. The world has plays in their playbook that may appear to work but they never do. Our playbook is based on eternity. The world’s playbook is filled with many different plays that would never appear in our playbook. Life’s stadiums are filled with “authorities” yelling what play we should run. There is but one head coach for believers. We run the play from the eternal playbook that the Lord calls. We may hesitate, but we hear him say, “Trust Me.”
That’s all that is needed. We run the play.
Scot Thigpen is president of The Thigpen Group, a Wealth Advisory Firm in Jackson, MS. He is married to the former Kimberly Inkster and they are parents of two sons and attend Christ United Methodist Church. Contact Scot at Scot@thethigpengroup.com.
