One Time

I am involved in a ministry called "The Encounter". This experiential ministry is commonly referred to among Encounter alumni simply as "the training", and I went through my training back in 2006. I think that's a little ironic and somewhat of a misnomer because unlike most training of any kind that I have ever received, I still participate in this ministry as a graduate to sow into the lives of others, and I still use many of the tools and principles I learned in the training in my life today. Although what I am about to share isn't something specifically articulated in the training exercises, I would like to think of this as a piece of the good fruit of my learning over the years I have participated in this ministry.

In the movie "Little Giants", the plot of the movie centers around a small town with 2 football teams, the Cowboys (who have the best athletes in the area and a former college football star as their coach) and the Giants (who have only two quality athletes on their team and an athletically challenged local businessman, who also happens to be the little brother of the Cowboys' coach. as their coach). The climax of the movie results in a high-stakes game between the Giants and the Cowboys in which the winning team gets to be the town's sole pee-wee football representative and the winning coach/brother gets to take over the losing brother's business. At halftime of the Giants-Cowboys game, several of the Giants' players tell about the "one time" they were able to win when they faced long odds or achieved something others thought they couldn't. This inspired the Giants to a furious second half comeback where they won on the game's final play.

The "one time" principle has larger application and greater implications on all of our lives than as a plot device in an enjoyable but predictable kids' movie. "One time" is actually two things at once, the inexhaustible source of a divinely inspired sense of hope and the omnipresent source of mortal danger. We as Christians can take great hope that God does not forgive us when only one time if/when we screw up, but in fact, commands us to forgive one another as He forgives, up to seventy times seven (Matthew 18:22). Taking it a step further, even the secular agnostic can and should take comfort from the concept of one time. It only takes one time to win at something at which we have spent our entire life losing...it only takes one time to make a decision that can change our life path for good and forever...you get the idea. Better still, if we string together enough positive "one time" occurrences, very soon patterns of credibility, victory, and healing, can take hold and form a sturdy foundation on which a wildly successful life can be built.

Conversely, both the Christian and the non-Christian must recognize that while "one time" has the awesome, life-changing ability that can do immeasurable good, it also possesses the danger of being able to take away everything we value in relatively short order. It has been my experience that great falls, massive loss, and almost unfathomable disasters typically happen very quickly. For example, when we forgive someone who has hurt us, the resulting freedom feels so great because the suffocating emotions of guilt, shame, and regret are gone. However, just as it took one time to forgive that person, humans are not God, and as such, forgiveness is sometimes an ongoing process during which we must forgive. In such cases, it only takes one time where we fail to forgive to put us right back in the old, familiar place of sadness which comes with unforgiveness. Similarly, it only takes one time of doing the wrong thing to completely obliterate a career or lifetime of good work, to destroy the credibility of a ministry that sows the best of things into the lives of others, or to wreck a marriage. Finally, and perhaps most lethally, enough occasions of sinning, doing the wrong thing, etc., "one time" can cause our heart to grow so calloused, our conscience to grow so silent, and our course to be so far from God that we risk never being able to find our way back to a life of integrity.

The advice here is fairly simple: have respect for the might and power of "one time", use it to do good in your own life and the lives of those you love, and always be on guard to avoid allowing the enemy or anyone else in life to make you believe the lie that one time will be OK.