The Ultimate Buffet

Imagine with me for a moment the Ultimate Buffet. All your favorites, personally selected by you, cooked just the way you want it. ALL your favorites...ALL you can eat. Sound like a dream?
More like a nightmare in reality...what? That's usually part of our problem, we don't think things through. So you're at this buffet, all you want of everything you want and what happens? Well, you begin to load the plate, "just a spoon of this & a glob of that, yeah, pile that steak right here". Then you waddle to the table and begin to eat, and eat, and eat, another trip or three through the buffet line, maybe the dessert line (or did you start there?) and then, all of a sudden you get that "wow, my belly hurts, I should've stopped eating a couple of plates ago" feeling, or the "I think I'm gonna be sick" feeling. And you've barely tasted half of your favorites so far...isn't that how it plays out? "Well, it just turned into more than I thought."

Yeah, I know, and that got me to thinking about our lives here in this good ole USofA...Too much of a good thing. What is it that you like (besides food)? Do you like Volleyball? My family does. Did you know that you can play competitive Volleyball 7 days per week? Yeah, about 360 days per year. There are school leagues, rec. leagues, city leagues, local club leagues, regional club leagues, national club leagues, & international club leagues, adult leagues, church leagues.

Then you can coach, referee, work the gate or the concession stand at the tournament. Oh, did you say you like Volleyball? There are movies about Volleyball, songs about Volleyball, books about Volleyball, articles about Volleyball, magazines about Volleyball, instructional videos about Volleyball, Volleyball websites, Volleyball camps, catalogs full of just Volleyball stuff. V-ball light shades & switch plates, I love V-ball bumperstickers & cell phone covers, V-ball posters, computer backgrounds & screensavers. There are special Volleyball shoes, kneepads, ankle-braces. You can proclaim your V-ball love on your socks, jacket, hat, purse, key-chain, coffee mug, jewelry, birthday cake. There are 450 pieces of Volleyball flair on facebook this morning.

Oh, wait, you don't like Volleyball? You like fishing? Well did you know you can fish 7 days per week? There are fishing tournaments, there are...No, it's Nascar? "Surely you've got your limited edition Kyle Busch M&M's travel alarm clock, eh?" Naw, I don't like that sports stuff, I love Video Games, collecting Precious Moments figurines, '24', scrapbooking, English Country Dancing, reading, woodworking, Acting in the community theater...

You see, anything you want, you can just get too much of it, and then all of a sudden you look at the schedule for the next week and realize that Volleyball has eaten your life. There is no time to go see the grandparents, we've got practice. There is no time to go to church Sunday, we've got a tournament. There is no time to play in the yard with the kids, I've gotta send a few emails to the players about our games next week, there is no time to eat a family meal, we've got a team meeting. There is no time for math, I've got to work on my jump-serve. Metaphorically speaking, your belly begins to ache and you think "how did I get into all this?" "Well, it just turned into more than I thought..."

So is this your "I hate Volleyball" post? No. Volleyball is fine, fun, and even good for you...taken in it's proper place. This is my "I hate Volleyball overload Post." The Apostle Paul said that one character trait of Christians is Temperance [Galatians 5:22-23]. Do you know what temperance is? It is self-control. It is moderation. It is saying 'no' to too much. I'm not tempted to have too much Broccoli, but put a couple of big juicy New York Strip steaks on the plate & "Owww, my belly hurts!"

I want to encourage you to take a break from the black hole that is consuming your life right now. Just pull back a bit, it's ok, no, it's godly, to say 'no'. Take the night off, hang out with the kids, go to church tomorrow, slow down, get things back into perspective a bit.

I'd love to say more about this, in fact, I probably will in the days to come, but right now, we're almost done with pool-play. We've done well so far [4-0] so it looks like we're in the Gold-Bracket...