This past weekend, my high school alma mater’s football team came up just a little bit short in its quest to return to the state championship for the first time in 40 years.
While an undefeated dream season came to an end, there is time to celebrate in ye olde hometown. Many players made the all-conference team and many fans, young and old, near and far, got to enjoy the fruits of their accomplishments.
With two of its star players coming back for their senior year, next year, there’s an optimism over a possible second consecutive deep playoff run and perhaps jumping over the next hurdle and getting to state.
As the title refers to, many sports fans love to look ahead to “next year” when things will be even better.
Looking ahead
Our lives have many instances of looking ahead to “next year”.
Any time we come up short of a goal, whether a short-term one or a long-term one, we like to express our “we’ll get ‘em next time” attitudes.
Much like any sports team that is motivated by that mentality, it requires more than just words. It includes a lot of action as well.
To do better “next year,” a team has to put in the same amount of hard work and dedication that they put in the year before and, to accomplish more, they probably have to do even more work.
For the goal-oriented and results-oriented crowd, coming up short or finishing second best just won’t do when it comes to “next year”.
Any time we say we’ll do better “next time,” do we ever stop and think about what that will involve?
Are we willing to put in the work to make “next year” and “next time” a reality?
The next ‘life’
Our Catholic faith gives us the ultimate “next year” and “next time” — the next life in Heaven.
We can easily take our current time and space for granted if we think “meh, it’ll be better in Heaven”.
Well, yes it will, but THAT requires a lot of work (and faith) to get there.
We know that Heaven and all that goes with it will be a billion million times better than anything we have here or anything we can imagine, but we can’t coast on our own survival here to think we’ll get to the “next day” in the great, eternal, and lovely beyond.
(Yes, I realize we went from high school football to the afterlife in just a couple of hundred words. I’m aware that escalated quickly.)
For those with pains, sufferings, sadness, sorrow, and any other bad thing you can think of, there is a promise of a better tomorrow in eternity, but just like any victory or championship, we have to practice or endure a regular season to get there (ah, see that? I brought it back to sports!).
So, let’s get out there and do some of life’s jumping jacks.
Thank you for reading.
I’m praying for you.