As a young boy I was drawn to the battle and story of the Alamo. Mexican army leaders had told the men inside the Alamo to surrender, or all defenders would be killed with no prisoners taken at the end. The Mexican army had about 4,000 men the defenders inside the Alamo had roughly 200 men.

Just before the final battle at the Alamo, Colonel Travis drew a line in the dirt with his sword and asked his men to decide what each of them was going to do. Surrender and leave the Alamo or step over the line and defend the Alamo to their deaths? After a siege of roughly two weeks the Mexican army attacked at dawn on March 6, 1836. The battle was over in about 90 minutes with all defenders’ dead.

Whether or not the story of the line in the dirt is just a story or the truth doesn’t matter. At some point each man inside the Alamo had to make up his mind whether he was staying or leaving.

Today we also have a choice. We can believe in Jesus as our savior and serve our creator, God the Father or we can choose not to. At the moment in the United States of America we might get made fun of or put down for choosing to believe and serve God, but in some places around the world men, women and children are being imprisoned, tortured and killed for their belief. Some day that persecution may come to us also.

Our choice today doesn’t come with a consequence of a death sentence immediately, but it will lead to a decision of how our lives will go in this world and where our soul will live after the physical body dies.

Joshua was the leader of the nation of Israel after Moses died. Joshua led the people into the Promised Land, and it was battle after battle, but with God on their side how could they lose? At one point Joshua drew a line in the sand also.

Joshua 24:15 But if serving the Lord seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day who you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living now. But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.”

Today our choices of who we will serve are many and where do you spend your time and money? Do you serve money, fame, power, technology, alcohol, drugs, sex, your job, your home, your vacations, government, sports? You get the picture. Today draw a line in the dirt and decide who you will serve. Whether literally, a line in the dirt or not, you are making a choice. Choose wisely.

I saw my daughters maiden name on a list for removal from our church membership list, since she was married and lived in another community and goes to church in that town. So I continued to look at the list to see if I knew anyone else on the list. I saw the last name of someone who I used to hang out with as a young man. I had not thought of that girl in a long time. So like we do today, I googled her name. To my shock her obituary showed up and she had died of a brain tumor five years earlier.

I felt like someone had punched me in the gut. I had really liked that girl, but eventually felt like we were not a good fit and so I quit seeing her. A month later she called me on the phone and when I told her that I didn’t think we were a good fit together she started crying. I felt guilty, deep in my soul for letting her go. That was the last time I spoke to her.

As I read her obituary and especially her caring bridge pages, where she told about her situation, that took place for over a year, it was a struggle to finish reading, because there were so many emotions. I wish I would have known about this, while she was alive to pray for her, to write her a card or letter or to make a phone call.

In this woman’s obituary, I learned that her father had passed on and she was the fifth sibling to pass away. She was survived by her 90 year old mother along with two other siblings. If we had a choice in life none of us would survive our children. As parents, we would like to be buried by our children. My thoughts and prayers went to her mom and siblings for what they have had to endure in their immediate family.

Death never comes at a good time. It comes and takes away those we love and cherish. We wish for more time to be spent with them, but that is not how it works. At some point, in our lives, hopefully we realize this fact and from that point forward we see life differently. As Christians we don’t think of bucket list, we think of relationships with our family and friends. We pray that God would continue to pursue our family and friends and that some day, they will open the door to Jesus before they pass on to the other side.

James 4:14 Why you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes.

We are not a permanent fixture on this earth and no matter how long we stay on this earth it won’t feel long enough to us or our loved ones. So live as though you know you will be passing from this earth tomorrow.

During my years of playing high school football, we always had some teammates that were just luke warm about being on the team. They were unenthusiastic, half-hearted, apathetic, bored, lackadaisical, and passionless about being on the football team. Those were just some of the adjectives we could say about them.

I remember myself and several of my friends asking some of those apathetic football players why they were out for football? Some of them said they were out for football because their dad’s made them come out for the team and they did not want to be there. One of the guys actually said his girlfriend wanted him to go out for football even though he didn’t want to. And then there were guys who wanted to be on the team, but they hated practice, so they went half speed so to speak during practice but wanted to only play in the games. And some of those guys were the most athletic kids on the team.

I have to say this also. I have talked to coaches in the past that didn’t sound enthusiastic about coaching young men.

Everywhere we go in life we seem to have some bored, half-hearted, unenthusiastic, passionless people. At our work, at church, in our sports in our other club organizations we have the same type of people. I don’t know about you, but I like to hang with excited people who want to be wherever we happen to be in life. I know it takes all kinds of people to make the world go around but find your niche and fill it.

Jesus said in Revelations 3:15-16 I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! So, because you are lukewarm—neither hot nor cold—I am about to spit you out of my mouth.

Recently, my wife and I went to Wichita to see our grandkids and their mom and dad. One evening they asked me to go to Dillon’s the next morning early to purchase some things. I went the next morning, arriving at Dillon’s at 7:15 a.m.

Coming from a small Kansas town I was amazed at the dairy aisle with so many products to choose from. But I could not find any of the buttermilk my daughter wanted. I asked a woman who was dragging a pallet jack loaded with boxes out of the back room, “Where is the buttermilk”? The woman gave me an angry look and said, “You will have to find it yourself.” I was kind of surprised and my first thought was to be angry with a comment back at her, but I kept quiet. I then called my daughter on the cell phone and said, “I have never seen so many milk products in my life and where exactly should I look for buttermilk?”

I am talking to my daughter on the phone at the far south end of this dairy aisle at the same time as the woman who told me to look for myself comes out of the back room and goes to the north end of the display and reaches in the refrigerator door and then without looking at me says in a loud voice, “That is all I have” and then she disappears in the back room again.

I go to the area the woman was at and in this refrigerator are three buttermilk containers in an otherwise empty area. I don’t know if she brought these three from the back room or what.

I take one and move towards the ice cream department. As I start down the aisle a man with a pallet jack filled with frozen goods is in the middle of that area. He pulls his head out of the freezer door and says, “Have you got enough room to get by my stuff?” I said, “Yes.” He says, “Good, have a great day.”

I get to the self-checkout area and am scanning my products and a woman that is working in the store filling in plastic bags at the checkout area is having a conversation out loud with God next to me. She says, “God, I need your help.” The woman actually said that twice and the Holy Spirit prompted me to say, “He will help you and is with you.” She never looked at me but said, “I had to go through Christmas by myself, He better help me.”

Three different people, in a matter of five minutes, one who was angry, one who was very happy, one who was searching for God. To be honest, the more I thought about it, I have been every one of those people in my life also, at some point of time.

Our scout team during my high school years of football was called the rainbow squad. We had different colored mesh pullovers that went over our jerseys and pads. We called ourselves the ‘bows.’ We were the ones who represented the opponent in practice and took on our own varsity during the week leading up to the varsity game on Friday night. We had great camaraderie and were a team within a team on the football roster. We loved taking on the varsity each Tuesday and Wednesday during scrimmage time. Some of my most fond memories of playing high school football came on those weekday scrimmages.

Small groups are important in life whether on a football team, such as linemen, defense, offense, special teams or small civic groups in your town or small groups within your church.

Research shows that 80% of people who join small groups in a church will still be involved in that church five years later. Only 20% of church goers who do not join small groups will be involved in that particular church five years later.

Create small groups in every area of your life and stay involved. The original twelve disciples were a small group and they changed the world.

Here below is the story of Father Kapaun a great Kansan. His remains have been identified in Korea and his funeral is today in Wichita.

Football coaches test players in practice so they can be ready for the big game on Friday night.

Our football opponents, during those games on Friday nights, try to fool the players to get out of position on defense by tempting us with counters, options, reverses, misdirection plays, play action passes and quarterback looks one way and throwing another.

God does not tempt us. God tests us to confirm our faith or commitment to Him.

Deuteronomy 8:2 “Remember how the Lord your God led you all the way in the wilderness these forty years, to humble and test you in order to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commands.”

Satan tempts us trying to pull us away from the will of God.

1 Thessalonians 3:5 ‘For this reason, when I could endure it no longer, I also sent to find out about your faith, for fear that the tempter might have tempted you and our labor would be in vain.’

James 1:13-15 When tempted, no one should say, “God is tempting me.” For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone; but each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed. Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown gives birth to death.

In the huddle before every play the fullback would ask, “Which way do we go Pat?” The fullback was a great athlete in Middle School football, but the kid refused to study the playbook. He was one of the best athletes in school and a large individual so the coach continued to play him.

Our offensive formation was the straight T. The fullback was to take a hand off from the quarterback on either side of the center in a dive play or he was to go to the left or right basically towards the defensive tackle or end and block ahead of the halfback. The coach thought of the pass as a negative thing. So before every play the fullback would ask the halfback which way to go after the quarterback called the play?

My first thought, when I think back to that team, is I laugh. It is a good story to have fun with. My second thought is I know the kid should have studied the playbook and I know he should have paid more attention to the play calling by the quarterback so that later in the season he could have known where to go by himself, but at least the kid never got the play wrong. How many times have you seen a kid think he knows the play and goes the wrong way? The quarterback turns the wrong way and smashes into the fullback and they fumble the ball. The quarterback reaches the ball out for the option play fake but the back is on the other side of the line behind him? The guard pulls the wrong direction and either steps on the quarterback’s foot or he runs into the other guard pulling right at him. You get the picture.

So which way do we go? Most of us in our lives go the way we want to go. The heck with the quarterback play calling. So in our lives we step on the quarterbacks feet, we run into the other players, we fumble the ball, we miss our assignments, we make a mess out of our lives in a football sense. God gives us the freedom to do whatever we want to do and we all screw it up, we all are sinners. But there is hope. Don’t ever give up. There is that guy in the huddle that will tell you which direction to go on every play. He is the Holy Spirit the Holy Representative sent by God the Father to be with us on this earth. All you have to do is ask him the question? Which way should I go?

Isaiah 48:17-18 Thus says the Lord, your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel: “I am the Lord your God, who teaches you to profit, who leads you in the way you should go. Oh that you had paid attention to my commandments! Then your peace would have been like a river, and your righteousness like the waves of the sea;