February 20, 2025 - Good Morning! It’s Thursday, February 20.
The thought for the day... Be a goldfish!
Have you watched the TV show “Ted Lasso?” It’s a comedy about this American football coach who goes to England to coach a soccer team. A lot of the humor comes from Ted’s “fish out of water” situation, but some of it lies in his homespun, quirky sayings. Like most coaches, or leaders of any kind, he has mottos that he uses to guide and to teach. They include “Be curious, not judgmental,” “You say impossible, I say I’m possible,” and “Don’t fight back, fight forward.” But my favorite Teddism is “Be a goldfish.”
Goldfish are said to have the shortest memories of any creature in God’s creation - about 10 seconds. I don’t know if this is really true, and if it is, I’m not sure how scientists discovered it. But, for the sake of discussion, Ted’s point - and the focus of this devotional - is that carrying the past on our backs is a heavy burden to bear. A good athlete, after a bad play, needs to be able to put that mistake out of his mind, so that he can do his best in the present. The Christian writer C. S. Lewis said it like this - “Getting over a painful experience is much like crossing the monkey bars. To move forward you have to let go.”
The Apostle Paul, using a sports metaphor, phrased it another way - “Forgetting what is behind, and reaching forward to what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.”
In other words... Be a goldfish!
Meet you back here tomorrow,
David
cindertex50@yahoo.com
