“His lord said unto him, Well done, good and faithful servant;” Matthew 21:23a
When I was a freshman in high school, I picked up a tennis racket for the first
time.
Three friends and I formed the tennis team at our school and we embarked on what
would become a four-year trek together that left us with a flood of wonderful
memories.
Wonderful memories – except for the district tournament during that first year.
You see, none of us really knew how to play tennis. And that was all fine when
we played each other, but when we met up against other teams from other schools
that were comprised of players who had been playing tennis for years, that was a
different story.
During that first district tournament, I played doubles with a guy named Paul
Rowlett. We stepped out onto the court and immediately realized that we were
outclassed.
Those around us were serving the ball hard and it was difficult for us to hit it
back at times.
And then the most embarrassing time of that tournament came.
It was my turn to serve the ball to our opponents. I didn’t know how to toss the
ball up really high, arc my back and hit the ball at maximum speed to create
momentum and spin.
What I knew how to do was toss the ball up about eye level and hit the ball in a
way that can only be described as “tapping” it.
I mean, I just did the least amount that I could to get the ball over the net.
And that was rarely good enough.
I’d tap it over nice and sweetly and our opponents would smack it back at me
infinitely faster and more accurately than I had sent it to them!
Throughout the course of that match, which we lost of course, I learned one
thing clearly...
I needed to learn how to serve well. It was that simple.
“Tapping” the ball just enough to get by wasn’t going to get it.
So, I decided then and there that I would improve my serve and I went to work
immediately.
I tossed that ball high into the air, I extended my reach as far as I could, I
struck the ball as hard and accurately as possible.
Over the next three years, I had one of the hardest first serves and one of the
best spin second serves in our district. (Albeit, not always consistent) I
learned to serve well and that made all the difference.
You know, we serve in a different way when we serve the Lord. It’s different in
that it’s not just a game. It’s different in that we’re not hitting it towards
our opponent, we’re sending it towards our heavenly Father.
But, it’s the same in one regard: We don’t want to walk onto the courts of life
and “tap” serve in our service to the King, just doing the least we can do to
get by.
No, we want to learn to serve well! We want to lift the Name of Jesus high into
the air, we want to extend His reach far across the land, we want to strike our
serve as hard and accurately as we can.
We want to serve our Savior well! He is, after all, the King of Kings.
Our service should be worthy of a King, not something that goes “tap” as if it
was given to someone merely common.
Instead of doing the least we can to get by, we should give our very best
effort, devoting ourselves to serving the best we can because we do it unto
Jesus Christ.
Let us make up our minds here and now to serve better than ever before!
And let us get to work immediately. A court is open.
It’s your turn to serve.
Jimmy Brown jimmy@Living4Jesus.com
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