Bless.

Tennis season is upon us again. The two-a-day practices have begun, we've hit hundreds of serves, volleys, and overheads. We're tired of imaginary tennis. We know we're supposed to move our feet, we just are too exhausted to try.

And so, with all the tennis overload. I think it's time to introduce something different that is just as important. It's time for the devotional portion of the Bethany Christian tennis blog.

Now, things I post here are only to be enhancements or rehashings of we cover in practice or team sessions, so hopefully they won't be completely new for players. But this is such a crucial part of what it means to be a Bethany Christian tennis player, we pursue things to improve and make them excellent. That includes working, learning, growing and maturing in our faith.

Last season, we introduced a series of verbs that will stand to be the basis of our actions. That was "Recognize. Remember. Bless. Pray." As soon as I get back to school and have some time with the old Photoshop, you'll see that reappear on the top graphic of the page. We want to continue to develop our faith by recognizing how God is currently working in our lives, remembering how God has worked for us and others in the past, then actively passing this blessing on to others, and continuing the relational and personal aspect of faith in prayer. To be refreshed on all we've covered in these areas, check the devotional links on the side.

This year, we're going to begin to unpack these verbs one by one. At tennis camp, we started by looking at the idea of blessing. To so many people, blessing has become to mean so much more than it does Biblically. It means that God wants you to be rich, fat, and happy. But we looked at Psalm 128 and saw that it was much simpler than that.

These are the blessing of Psalm 128:
1. That you get the fair reward of the work that you put in.
2. That you get to be part of a community, a family, that shares the same goals.
3. That you are allowed to see and share in the success of others in a community.
4. That you get to be a part of bringing peace.

Those are the parts of blessing. So, we realize that we're blessed when God allows us the fair result of the work we've put in. In thinking through that logically, that means we better put in a fair amount of work if we want to be successful. We realized that we need to come together around the same goals, our else our community will splinter and we will not be blessed by unity. We thought about the fact that despite tennis being an individual sport, we may be blessed this year by getting to experience and watch the success of others. And we should rejoice in that blessing instead of wallowing in our own difficulties or losses. Finally, we saw that any time we are an instrument of peace, that in and of itself is a blessing.

So that's a quick reminder of where we've been with devotionals this year. We hope to continue to be formed by this idea of blessing, so that we can appropriately fill ourselves up with the right understanding, and then spill over to bless others as well!