Can I Predict When Down Times Are Going to Hit?
If the owner of the house had known at what time of night the thief was coming, he would have kept watch and would not have let his house be broken into. So you also must be ready.
Jesus (Matthew 24:43-44a)
They say pro football quarterbacks fear one thing almost more than anything else: being blindsided.
When you take the snap and drop back into the pocket, you become a tasty morsel dangling in front of hungry defensive ends and blitzing middle linebackers. These wolves weigh 265 pounds apiece and can sprint the distance between the line and your tender body in two seconds flat. Their trip to the Pro Bowl depends on how many times they can slam you to the Astroturf.
But as long as you can see them coming, you're pretty safe. You can dodge; you can duck, scramble, get a pass off, or head for the sidelines. Roger Staubach, the former Dallas Cowboys great, describes the dynamic in a play against the Los Angeles Rams in the early seventies: "I took the snap, dropping back to pass. A defensive lineman broke loose on my left. I ducked and he went over me. I rolled to my left and Mike Montgomery, sensing that I might run, knocked down the linebacker on that side, Isiah Robertson. I took off for the first down."1
It's when you can't see them coming that there's trouble. You cock your arm to throw, you're concentrating only on that tight end cutting across midfield, and WHAM! Your head snaps back, and the wind's knocked out of you. Then you crunch the turf.
The situation's not too different for pastors trying to dodge discouragement. If only you could learn to read when discouragement might come at you, you could keep from getting blindsided.
Reading the Blitz
I asked veteran pastors who have learned to "read the blitz" when discouragement ...
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