It's Coming Back

I am in a class with a lady who attends Elevation in Charlotte and she directed me to her pastor's blog (http://www.stevenfurtick.com/) and this was an entry I read entitled "It's Coming Back." I found the analogy very insightful as my church in Columbia is in the midst of chaos resulting from the pastor falling into adultery, and I have also seen this evidenced in businesses when business takes off so fast you don't have the leadership in place to handle it. I hope it challenges you like it did me.

I was watching a football game this past fall and the team I was cheering for pulled off an incredible play for a huge gain. It seemed like momentum had finally swung our way and there was nothing that could keep us from moving forward and scoring.

And then I heard the announcer say, “It’s coming back. It’s coming back. There’s a flag on the play.”

Everything that had just been achieved was gone. The momentum disappeared. And we were now moving backwards.

What’s so frustrating about a play being called back is not that it means that gains weren’t made. Significant gains were made. Momentum was created. What makes it frustrating is that it is all canceled out because of an indiscretion. So much achievement is erased in an instant.

I’ve come to see this as a challenging analogy for us to make sure we’re not canceling out the big gains we have been and are experiencing by having something in our life called back because of a lapse in character.

How many ministries have made significant gains that had to come back because the pastor was caught in a moral failure? If you get the ball down the field and grow a big church but it comes back, what does it matter? Yes, lives will have been transformed. But you won’t be around to enjoy it.

How many successful business people have climbed the ranks of their organizations through the use of their God-given abilities, only to be fired because they tried to cut a corner to maintain the success they had achieved?

The same idea goes for students, spouses, politicians. Everybody.

Pay attention, because I think of a lot of us need to hear this. This is your chance to make sure that the momentum you have in your life continues and the gains you’re making remain intact.

Listen: None of your achievements are so big that they can’t be torn down in an instant by a lapse in judgment. Your talents and abilities can take you where your character can’t keep you. If there is anything in your life that has the potential to cancel out all of the successes you’ve had up to this point, get rid of it now before it undoes everything you’ve worked for.