Sucker Punched

By Pastor Christian in Thinking About Sunday on 1/25/10

This blog is about the seventh message in the Ultimate Fighter series, “Sucker Punched.” For more information about The Ultimate Fighter or to listen to messages, watch videos, and read other blogs visit our Ultimate Fighter Page by clicking here.
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A Sucker Punch is an unexpected blow. Merriam Webster adds, “usually from behind,” I dunno, something about those last three words really completed the image for me – a suffering sprung from nowhere. Perhaps it’s my job or maybe it’s the ubiquitous misery spewed from cable news all day long. Either way, I am keenly aware that we are all about a breath away from a devastating sucker punch…

…or not, who knows. I have noticed like the Teacher in Ecclesiastes – that stuff happens. Young, promising people die, old, useless criminals live. Some Christians live in comfort all the days of their life, other seem to do nothing but collect suffering. One generation prospers, another fails. One country eats, another starves. Sun goes up, Sun goes down. I do not know, you don’t know, the creation is broken this life goes on until God’s plan is complete. I am not the Maker and his ways are beyond mine. That He IS - is enough for me.

A funny thing…this realization does not disturb me anymore; quite to the contrary, it has become one of my primary motivators to LIVE.

Because our Faith is real - it has become freedom. Freedom to dare. Freedom to try. Freedom from terror.

Think about it. What do we have to lose living a life of Radical Faith? Consider that we can not protect even the most precious things in our life. The future is not ours. It could be gone in an instant. All these things are like a breath, a mist that fades in the morning sun. Do you think that it may be the very precarious nature of life that has the potential to help live it?!

Do you see what I am getting at? How something about the very real possibility of a Sucker Punch, under the Eye of God, can loosen our grip on everything else and in turn release terror of protecting it.

Dear God, it’s like the freedom of a dead man or desert drifter. What do you have to lose if you walk with him?! Nothing. He already holds it all. Tomorrow you might take a Sucker Punch. Tomorrow might be awesome. Either way, – He is sovereign; you are a child of God, an heir to the promise, and a citizen of an eternal Kingdom. Done.

Can it be that the possibility of the sucker punch gives us a long range sensibility to live very short range?

Look, I don’t relish the punches. I hate them for me and you. I’d simply like to suggest they are not the whole story. . .not even a little.

John 16:33, “In this world you WILL have TROUBLE. But take heart I have overcome this world.”

Matthew 10:27, “Which of you by worrying can add a single hour to your life?”

Bash me; Agree with me; Just start talking

Christian

 

 

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