Live Like You’re In The Game!

I love tournaments. The competition, energy, tension. Win and play again or lose and go home.

The NCAA March Madness is a favorite time for many sports fans because of that.

The underdog taking on the favorite hoping for that one game where they take down the giant. The player who shoots the free throws to tie the game with no time on the clock or, better yet, the last second shot from deep beyond the 3-point line to win the whole thing.

In moments like that there is so much emotion: one team rejoices and one team feels empty. You see 18-22 year olds jumping around like kids who got some free candy or having faces of tears like someone took the candy.

It’s one thing to watch it but to be a player in it is a whole different ball game (no pun intended 😉 ).

photo credit

photo credit: O via photopin (license)

Some times you hear players after the game talk about “If only I would have did this or not done that.”

I even hear players put the loss on their own shoulders saying they cost their team the game. Noble? Maybe. Hard on the heart? Definitely.

Think about the disciples. They thought they had suffered the worst loss ever when Jesus was crucified and died.

The One who called them from mundane life to experiences of healings, miracles, intense conflict with people who wanted to kill Him. The one they followed for three years of their lives seeing things they wouldn’t know how to put into words.

The One who said He loved them and the One they loved was gone in a sequence of events of brutality, fear, betrayal. It’s a cloud of hopelessness.

This feeling of defeat and blur of confusion was endured for three days.

This wasn’t a ball game. For these followers is what the very heartbeat of who they were thrown into tornado of havoc and spit out with no compassion.

Imagine what it would be like for a team who lost a heartbreaking game in the tournament to get a call to find out their loss had been reversed and they were now declared the winners!

How would that feel for those players that they were still in the tournament and still invited to compete and play in the next game?

Magnify that emotion by a million and then you might taste what the Mary, Martha, and the disciples felt when they found the tomb empty and Jesus reappeared to them.

What was happening in front of them was inconceivable: Jesus had come back to life in front of them. What was happening inside of them was even more inconceivable.

They were being told not to go home and curl up on the ground in defeat but instead all things had been reversed and they were still in the game!

We’ve been told the same thing.

That should cause anyone to jump, shout, dance, even shed tears but oh they are tears of joy!

Does it do that to you?

We just celebrated Easter Sunday, the most crucial day in the life of a Christian. It put us back in the game.

How do you live after that? How will you live this year?

The disciples lived the wake of the resurrection of Jesus like they never had before. They didn’t want to waste their second chance.

You? Me?

We’re still in the game through Jesus Christ. Not only that, the victory is already ours!

Don’t live like you wish you would have, should have, could have.


God is good.














God is good all the time!


Lent and the Eide Family





The Eide Family

The Eide Family

My family and I have decided to make a music commitment.











Music is powerful and your heart and mind know it!



It narrows down the playlist for sure.


That’s not what we’re doing.

Instead we’re looking at what Philippians 4:8 says:







Think it through.


God is good all the time!


The Rooster Returns!

I was out golfing…yes I know, tough life but I am willing to do it. As a couple of my friends and I were walking down the 18th fairway at a more rural golf course, we heard the sound of a rooster crowing like it was the morning. One of my buddies said out loud, “I wonder what the Apostle Peter thought of when he heard that sound?”

You know the story. Jesus predicts that Peter will deny Jesus three times and when he does a rooster will crow. Peter in all his confidence says “No way, Lord, I would never do that!”  Of course Jesus knew it, Peter did it, and the rooster crowed. Then in the Gospel of John, chapter 21 we read where Jesus reinstates Peter after His resurrection asking him three times if he loved Him. Peter says yes three times, and Jesus, without hesitation, says, “then feed My sheep.”



Rooster returns

photo credit: tinachensf via photopin cc

Did he remember his screw up, is failure, his absolute falling on his face when his Lord needed him?

I think only for a second. Reflecting on the words Peter would write and the life he lived, I tend to believe his thoughts would go to John 21 where Jesus restored him, remembering how far God has brought him. Peter was commissioned to feed the sheep. He did not wallow in the guilt, he lived a “Jesus freak” type life of a man who was restored. That’s what Jesus died for.

What about you?

When you experience a memory through a smell, song, picture, location, calendar date, tradition, etc. that brings back a hard time, mistake, failure, painful moment, what do you remember?

I ask myself as much as you because I am convinced that God does not want you and me to have a huge pit in our stomach forever and degrade ourselves or feel sorry for ourselves. That can take our eyes off the cross, the prize, and we will miss so many divine moments.

Jesus died for all of the “As Is” moments we have.



The next time you here the rooster crow in your own life, remember, amidst the scars, God never left you where you were. He has showed Himself to you time and time again and has reinstated you through the cross.

Feed His sheep.

Love you all,