Photo by: Mel_Rawling
As children use the term, you don’t want to be around a jinxed person. Who wants to be around when bad stuff messes up something good we thought we could count on?
In the world of sports, athletes do a lot of strange and superstitious things to avoid the dreaded curse, field gods, or anything else that creates chaos at the most unexpected moments.
So if we aren’t superstitious, how do we explain the sudden unforced errors–the stupid mistakes– or the awful feelings that seem to follow some of our best and most treasured moments? Are those slip ups inevitable? Or by focusing on Christ can we make them a thing of the past?
I raise the question after our last conversation about Being Real Before Being Right resulted in an honesty of conversation that I found so healthy and helpful.
Along the way, though, one of our friends asked a question about our emphasis on being real before being right. Is being honest about our wrongs all it takes to be right? Haven’t followers of Christ been given the ability to rise above and beyond our admission of mess ups? Doesn’t our alignment with Christ result in a wholeness of life that is a better way of being right?
I think those questions reflect the one that was raised. If I’ve misunderstood or misrepresented the point, I hope this friend will correct me.
My thought is that as true as it is that those in Christ can claim new life by “abiding in him”, we need to keep talking about what that looks like. I, for one, have never experienced, for any period of time, being in that zone where all that is showing is Christ.
Even the thought that “I think I’m finally getting it together”, reminds me of how I wince inside whenever a sports announcer talks about a person who is “in the zone” of not making any mental or athletic errors.
I’m not sure what to make of the superstitious sounding “jinx” in sports. But I’ve noticed that even the thought that I’m starting to get the hang of the “exchanged-life principle” (i.e. abiding in Christ and experiencing his life in exchange for my surrender) results in finding coffee stains on my “white shirt” or something worse.
Isn’t it safer to long for “higher ground” while always remembering that “God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble (James 4:6-10); (1Peter 5:5-8).
Am pretty sure that I’m on to something that most of us can identify with, but don’t know how much I’m missing in the process. Hope the conversation will continue.
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