I will sometimes be reading the Bible or a Christian book or a devotional when funny thoughts and questions will come to me. Just this week I was reading about Mary, the mother of Jesus, as the author told about the unspeakable heartache that the angel's announcement brought her when he said "You have found favor with God." There were to be difficult times, really terrible times, for Mary from before Jesus' birth till His crucifixion. She must have been at least partly aware of what was ahead for her because she answers the messenger with these words: "I am the Lord's servant. May it be to me as you have said." And I wonder: Did she really say that? Was she a Jewish girl who believed that the coming Messiah would suffer and die for all mankind? Or did she just think of the immediate crazieness that what the angel told her would bring? Either way, Mary said that she was God's servant and whatever He says is fine and she was ready to go along with His plan. I'm usually so unable or unwilling to say things like this to God. But, I know this is what He wants, no, what He requires, if I am to have intimacy with Him. In this same book, Out of the Ordinary, Dave Roper, the author, says this: "The only way to learn Mary's words is to know that God's will is good, acceptable and perfect, and to accept day by day the conditions and circumstances He permits; to lay down our will and patiently submit to His will as it is presented to us day by day in the form of the people with whom we have to live and work, and in the things that keep happening to us.

Do you? Do I really want God's will for our lives?
I want the good part that says "Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him" Isaiah 64:4. But, I begin to fret and think that submission to God's will only means "Choosing to suffer affliction for a season," as it says in Hebrews 11:25 about Moses. These thoughts aren't present all the time, but Satan sneaks them in whenever he can. Like when your granddaughter dies, or when the doctor says to come in because they found something in the lab report, or just having to work with a disagreeable ADHD student or learning to live with the losses and limitations of old age. Roper goes on to say in this section of his book called Exactly Right that, "We must believe that every circumstance of our life---every moment as well as the course of our entire life, anything and everything that happens to us---has come to us by God's will and by His permission and is exactly what we need."
When I tell Godbthat I want to believe this, but that I need His help, amazing things happen.

Two brief illustrations. I was 26 and was married with two children. I planned a backpack trip with my 16 year old brother. The two of us went into the back country of Yosemite. Every plan I had made, every preparation and every decision was wrong. The three days were a disaster and could have easily cost us our lives. Two years later I, with my wife and children, was working at Mt. Hermon during the summer. A young man named Robin Weinwright asked me if I had any backpacking experience. I said yes, but before I could explain that it was all bad, he asked if I would I assist him in leading the Sierra Trek program he was organizing for Mt. Hermon. I was to be involved in the Trek program for two summers and gained great and positive experience in proper backpacking. Then, just one year later I asked a number of my coaching friends if they would like to backpack in Sequoia National Park over the Memorial Day weekend. Over the next 10 years or so, many of my fellow coaches and friends took part in these trips. I can think of a number who committed their lives to Christ as a result of those hikes. Steve Barnett, helping to coach Water Polo here at Valley, is one of those coaches. God used what I had first made a real mess of and brought great good out of it.

The other story has to do with our efforts to encourage our team members to be positive witnesses for the Lord when they play other teams. I often think this is an unreachable goal---that the kids might play dirty or use bad language. Then, a Valley parent who has a sister who works at West High in Tracy tells me at church yesterday (this was written in 2005): "My sister said that three of West's football players came in office at school and she asked them about the game with Valley. They said it was really a tough game but that the Valley guys were different---they were nice guys. One of the other secretaries said, "That's because they are Christians!"
So, God takes our doubts, our questions, our dumb mistakes and uses them for good. If we hang in there with Him, He'll let us see wonderful things he's doing ------if we don't give up, especially in the tough times."

-Coach Hitch