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Deliberate Ignorance

First, let me apologize that it is March and this is my first post of the year. There is no excuse.

Now, let me hasten on to what what brings me here. Last week, tennis star Maria Sharapova held a press conference where she "took responsibility" for testing positive for a banned substance during January's Australian Open. She said that she had been using Meldonium for about 10 years for various medical issues and when the new banned substance list came out, she saw the email, but failed to click the link that would take her to the actual list of banned substances. In other words, she claimed ignorance.

Further investigation of the whole story, reveals that banned substances are on a watch list for at least a year before they are officially banned. Since that is the case, wouldn't it make sense for an international tennis star of Sharapova's character to pay close attention to whether her medication would end up as a banned substance? The simple answer is yes. But she simply failed to click the link. Deliberate ignorance.

As I thought about this story, I thought about this Christian journey. How often do we deliberately fail to read the Word or to seek the will of God before acting and then when things go wrong, we simply claim that we didn't know? Don't answer that.

Much like Sharapova, the information that we need, indeed the information that is vital to our continued success, has been given to us. All we need to do is click the link. There is no excuse for failing to do that.

This leads me to conclude that the reason we fail to read the Word or seek the Lord is that we really just want to do our own thing. We are placing our will above God's and then claiming ignorance. It just doesn't work like that.

This inconvenient Christian path requires due diligence. It requires us to be deliberate about our actions. After all, we serve a God who was deliberate and intentional about sending His Son to be our Redeemer.

Heavenly Father, please renew in us the spirit of intentionality as it relates to Your will and Your Word.

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