Joyful Transformation

Monday night when I was playing tennis I discovered that I had slipped into a bad habit. Whenever my partner was pulled wide or had to jump for a ball….I grunted. Now, this is even stranger because I don’t grunt when I hit the ball, but for her I grunted. I guess I thought if I strained a little too it would help her get to the ball. Unfortunately it didn’t do much for our play because when I realized what I was doing I started laughing hysterically. But somehow the realization I was doing it didn’t stop me from doing it again. The ensuing laughter was really interfering with my game. But we still pulled off the win. (last night we fell in another tie-break…maybe I should have been grunting).

I wonder if this is a form of “lifting each other up” or “spurring each other on”. I know that when we are engaged in a team effort it is easy to want your partner to do their very best. I think sometimes it is easy for us to forget that we are on a team, or at least we are all members of the same body. The Bible tells us we are in a spiritual warfare. Maybe it would be more accurate to say we are in the same army. Anyway, we need to learn to “grunt” for each other. I need to be just as concerned about the really hard things my “teammates” have to do in real life as I am on the tennis courts.

Hebrews 10:24 (NLT) Think of ways to encourage one another to outbursts of love and good deeds.