Give your best

The day after Thanksgiving, I watched the movie "Facing the Giants" for the second time. If you can get past some of the corny acting in the beginning, the movie is a very good story, and very inspiring.

At one point, the coach in the movie tells his place kicker to "give God your very best and leave the rest up to Him."

That phrase stuck with me. How many times have we asked God to take care of a situation, and yet we have failed to "give our very best?" This phrase has become a recurring theme in the work around the office - both mine and that of some of my employees. I believe if we give our very best at each thing we put our hand to -- in order to give Him glory -- he will bless the effort.

One such instance came last week. With Benton facing Bastrop in the semi-finals of the Class 4A playoffs, I came up with the idea of a "Beat Bastrop" post to run in the newspaper. Ok, I didn't actually "come up" with the idea -- it had been done in other newspapers -- but this was the first time we've attempted anything like it. It figures it would have to do with football.

We would put "Beat Bastrop" on one side of the page and sell the other side to sponsors. It was a good idea, but not a lot of time to get it all together.

My advertising manager was excited and decided to sell the entire thing himself. He hit the ground on Tuesday afternoon and headed to Benton.

Upon his return, he was a bit disheartened. The people I thought would jump on this say their budgets have been spent on the Benton football radio broadcasts or somewhere else."

He said he would try again the next day (Wednesday.). Time was running short, however, as Friday's edition would have to be sent to the press by 10 a.m. Thursday.

Upon his return, the entire page had been sold to 4 sponsors. Two ads would be created locally, while the other two would come from a corporate office or agency. My ad manager was excited.

We shared a couple of "Praise the Lord(s)" and "God is good(s)."

Then came the "monkey in the wrench."

At 8:30 a.m. Thursday morning, we learned that one of the sponsors had backed out. Instead of throwing in the towel, or running the page with just the three sponsors and losing money on the deal, I told my ad manager, "Give God your very best and leave the rest up to Him."

He went to work, and secure not one, but two sponsors to finish out the page. It all happened within a span of less than an hour, and the page went to press on time, and on budget.

This was truly an effort where God moved on the scene and received the glory after we had "given our best."

Skeptics may want to explain it away as good fortune or luck. It's amazing people can believe in luck and not believe in a loving God... but that's another post.

The principle of giving your very best is not new by any stretch of the imagination. In fact, God gave his very best to us.

For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten son...

May The Blog Be With You.