Improving Your Serve Series

Improving Your Serve

-Find God’s Plan for Your Life-

Proverbs 3:5-6

Playing tennis has a lot in common with finding God’s plan for your life.

I first started playing tennis in High School. I enjoyed getting out and hitting the ball as hard as I could with a wood racquet. I would try spinning the ball and doing fancy serves. The ball ended up going into the net and over the fence.

The summer of my first year of High School I took tennis lessons. I learned that there are fundamentals of tennis you need to learn before hitting the ball with all your might. There is a way to hold the racquet for fore hand and backhand. There is a proper way to stand to serve. My tennis coach told us to practice serving. Throw the ball up just above your left shoulder if you are right handed.

After learning the fundaments of tennis I started to play better.

There are fundamental principles God has given to help you prepare for a meaningful life. God has promised to guide you and help you find His plan for your life. Proverbs 3:5-6 give two fundament principles that are pre-requisites to finding God’s will for your life.

I. Trust the Lord (Proverbs 3:5)

The writer of Proverbs says, “ Trust the Lord with all your heart.” One translation of Proverbs 3:5 says, “Trust God from the bottom of you heart.” The Bible promises that you will find God when you seek the Lord with all your heart. Jeremiah 29:13, “You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.”

God wants you to have abundant life and live a life of victory. The Lord spoke through Jeremiah the prophet when He said: “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to give you hope and a future.”

God is trustworthy.

Have you seen the commercial that begins with a young girl standing alone in a picturesque meadow? The camera then pans to another part of the field where it shows a gigantic African rhinoceros. The ominous beast begins a lethal charge towards the girl, whose serene and happy face remains unmoved. As the rhinoceros gets closer, the words appear on the screen, "Trust is not being afraid." A split second before the rhino tramples the helpless child, it stops, and the girl, her smile never wavering, reaches up and pets the animal on its massive horn. The final words then appear, "even when you are vulnerable."

The commercial was designed to promote the abilities of an insurance company to protect its clients from the uncertainties of life. How much more does it describe the person who trusts in the Lord! The person who trust in the Lord can confidently say with the psalmist, "I will say of the Lord, ’He is my refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust.’"

Human nature tends to doubt and not trust God. Many of us by nature are skeptical. Some of you don’t trust computers or gadgets. You check the adding machine receipts to make sure it added right.

There was a man who lived on Long Island. He was able one day to satisfy a lifelong ambition by purchasing for himself a very fine barometer. When the instrument arrived at his home, he was extremely disappointed to find that the indicating needle appeared to be stuck, pointing to the sector marked "HURRICANE." After shaking the barometer very vigorously several times, its new owner sat down and wrote a scorching letter to the store from which he had purchased the instrument. The following morning on the way to his office in New York, he mailed the letter. That evening he returned to Long Island to find not only the barometer missing, but his house also. The barometer’s needle had been right--there was a hurricane!

Tourist at the Grand Canyon: Man visited the Grand Canyon and while he was looking over the side he slipped, as he fell he caught a scrub bush and held on for dear life,

Dialogue

Man - “Is there anybody up there?”

Voice speaks: “Yes, there is”

Man - “Can you help me? Can you help me?”

Voice - “Yes, I can most likely be of assistance. What is your problem?”

Man - I slipped and fell off of the cliff and I am dangling by this bush”

Voice - I’ll do my best. Do you believe?”

Man - “Yes, I believe!”

Voice - Do you have faith?

Man - Yes I have faith

Voice - Do you trust me?

Man - Yes I trust you!

Voice - Let go of the branch and everything will turn out fine

Man - Is there anybody else up there?

Two examples from the Old Testament come to mind of two men that trusted God in times of testing and trial.