07.06.01

In an essay titled "Good Guys Finish First (Sometimes)," Andrew Bagnato told the following story:

Following a rags-to-riches season that led them to the Rose Bowl– their first in decades– Northwestern University's Wildcats met with coach Gary Barnett for the opening of spring training.

As players found their seats, Barnett announced that he was going to hand out the awards that many Wildcats had earned in 1995. Some players exchanged glances. Barnett does not normally dwell on the past. But as the coach continued to call players forward and handed them placards proclaiming their achievements, they were cheered on by their teammates.

One of the other coaches gave Barnett a placard representing his seventeen national coach-of-the-year awards. Then, as the applause subsided, Barnett walked to a trash can marked "1995." He took an admiring glance at his placard, then dumped it in the can.

In the silence that followed, one by one, the team's stars dumped their placards on top of Barnett's. Barnett had shouted a message without uttering a word: "What you did in 1995 was terrific, lads. But look at the calendar: It's 1996."

In our Christian lives, what we have done in the past is important, but like this football team, what is more important with God is what we will do with today. Implied in the text is that Demas had faithfully served God in the past (Col. 4:14; Philemon 1:24), but, at the time of Paul’s second letter to Timothy, had forsaken God and Paul and gone back into the world (2 Timothy 4:10). How do you think Demas will fair in the judgment (2 Peter 2:20-22)?

It's great to celebrate the accomplishments of the past. But with God, our best days are always ahead. I am reminded of the words of the writer of the letter to the Hebrew Christians, "Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us" (Hebrews 12:1 NKJV).