Joyful Transformation

Last night I played tennis in Huntsville (yes AGAIN).  I was playing mixed doubles with a partner I have not played with before.  I may have mentioned that this is my first year to play tennis, but I am not that bad.  Have some good shots, just gotta work on the consistency issues.  Well, my partner is of Oriental descent (sorry couldn’t tell you which country of origin) and English is his second language.  Now, I have noticed having an Italian sister-in-law that the one thing people don’t pick up when they learn English as a second language is the art of tact.  Now I am not saying they are rude, not at all, but things they say are very matter-of-fact and if you are sensitive may hurt your feelings.  (Fortunately I am a middle child with two brothers, no sensitivity left in this old gal).  Well my esteemed partner decided to tell me everything I was doing wrong.  Now that could be a long discourse and quite interesting if HE were doing everything right, but such was not the case.  The guy we were playing against had perfected the backhand slice to a trick shot.  He put so much spin on the ball it would jump two feet away from where it landed, it just takes a couple of times to read this ball.  My partner kept telling me“Must keep eye on ball.” Well duh!  Did he think I was watching my shoe laces??  I missed a second serve and he told me the problem was “I not look at ball when I hit it”.  Well, I took this all with a grain of salt.  I knew I did not drive to Huntsville to not have fun.  So I had fun.  When it was his serve he double faulted about three times, must have took eye off ball!!!

There are things we know, there are things we can see others doing that we know are detrimental to their success, but most of the time our criticism whether constructive or not will not be appreciated when we have obvious flaws in our own lives.  Where do we reach that place of humility it takes to reach someone else?  Our lives will never be good enough.  Sure if they know Jesus we can point to Him, but what if they don’t know Him?  What if we are trying to tell them about His saving love and all they can see is our screw ups?  I think this is the number one reason I don’t reach out to more people.  They see ME!  They know I am a mess.  They don’t know that God loves me anyway, and He will love them too!  How do I tell them???