Sugar Bowl
In a couple of days my wife and I will head down the road to New Orleans to watch my beloved Georgia Bulldogs do battle with the Hawaii Rainbow Warriors in the Sugar Bowl on New Years Day.
Some of my fellow Bulldog fans are a bit concerned about playing Hawaii with its high powered offense. I really don’t think we have a whole lot to worry about considering we are playing a team who is coached by a man with the same first name as Beaver Cleaver’s mother.
This will be my first trip to that part of the world since Hurricane Katrina left the area devastated a couple of years ago. I am sure that what I will see two years removed will pale in comparison to the devastation that was originally on display.
What I do know from the reports and accounts that I have heard and read is that the road to recovery has been long and hard and is far from complete.
It is kind of ironic that a hurricane while lasting only a few hours can cause damage so great that it takes years to restore things as they were. In this irony we also find a great lesson for life.
The bad choices and poor decisions of a single moment can have a lifetime of consequences. On the other hand the good choices and wise decisions of a single moment can yield a lifetime of benefits.
I am old enough now that I can look back on my life and reflect on the choices that I have made down through the years. I am amazed at how decisions that seemed relatively benign and unimportant at the time had a tremendous impact on my life.
As a good Methodist I do not believe that God has a script for our lives. However, I know from experience that God is always at work in the lives of those who seek to live according to his will. I know that God has been at work in my life at times when I didn’t even know it.
As the calendar turns its page from one year to the next we are drawn to looking back on the past year and looking forward to the next. I do not know what the coming year will bring. I know that all of us will be faced with choices and decisions. Some will seem important and others will not.
Yet, in every choice we make we are called to seek to do the will of the one that created us and gives us life.