What did trick shots teach us about God?
Let's find out.
How'd he do that?
Humans are pretty amazing.
They can learn to do incredible things like this
and this
They put in the hours.
They practice and practice and then practice some more.
They sacrifice their free time and their bodies to get really good at one specific thing.
I'm pretty good at whistling.
Yep, this world is full of some amazing human beings.
And they can help us know more about God and who he is.
When I was a kid, I liked playing basketball.
I liked it, but I didn't love it because I wasn't great at it.
In fact, I got cut from the team.
Been there.
You know who made the team?
The people who had practiced a lot.
The ones who ran even when it hurt.
The ones who made lots of free throws.
They had to say no to some things in order to say yes to basketball.
Because to get really good at something, you have to put in a lot of time.
Right.
If you want to get great at Fortnite, you have to play a lot of Fortnite.
If you want to be able to do a sweet kick flip, you got to spend a lot of time on your skateboard.
If you want to make crazy awesome goalie saves in the nick of time,
you have to spend a lot of time in the net making saves.
If you want to get really good at slipping spaghetti, you have to slurp a lot of spaghetti.
Most people aren't just naturally awesome at something.
It takes work and even the ones we think of as naturals weren't.
Here's some proof.
Remember that basketball trick shot from the beginning?
It didn't just happen on the first shot.
It took a lot
and lots of tries.
There are even famous people who failed.
This guy is Michael Jordan.
He's famous for being a great basketball player.
He also got cut from his high school team.
He missed more than 9,000 shots in his career and lost almost 300 games.
And there were 26 times when he would have taken the game-winning shot, and he missed.
Or Vincent Van Gogh, the famous artist.
He only ever sold one painting while he was alive.
When he died, he thought he was a failure.
Or Dr Seuss, the guy who wrote The Cat in the Hat,
dropped out of school and nobody wanted to publish his first book.
The Wright brothers crashed the first seven planes they tried to fly.
All of these people were really good at what they did, maybe even the best.
But you know what?
They were still nowhere near perfect.
They experienced failure all the time.
Why?
Because they're human and humans aren't perfect, not even close.
Ready for your mind to be blown?
God has never been anything but perfect.
He always gets it right the first time.
He never has to try harder.
His first try is always perfect.
He is the only perfect thing.
Now, here's where my mind gets all twisty like spaghetti.
Did someone say spaghetti?
God made humans, and God is perfect.
So why aren't we perfect?
Watch this while I try to find someone who can help us.
Abraham Lincoln was a professional wrestler before he was the President of the United States.
Extreme ironing is an actual sport.
Crowds at one college football game in Louisiana
once cheered so loud that it registered as an earthquake on the local seismograph.
Now you know.
I think I know someone who can help.
Theological, how are you?
Oh, I'm doing well.
Hello, Mae, or should I call you by your full name Maybelline Chalely McFady.
What brings you to my humble abode?
Well, we were just talking about how God made everything and God is perfect.
And we're like God, but we're not perfect.
And how is that possible?
I just got really confused.
Now you're asking a wonderfully big question and to start us off,
I'd like to have a little bit of context.
Do you know what context is?
I think so.
It's...it's like background information, right?
Exactly, yes.
Now context gives us a little bit more information that helps us find
the answers that we're looking for.
Now this piece of context is actually a story from the Bible that tells us about how God
made people, and I think we'll find it very helpful in a minute.
So, uh let's watch this.
God's story: God made people
So part of God's story is about how he made people, and it goes like this.
The very beginning of time God made the world, and he did it just by speaking.
He made the blue sky and planets with rings and galaxies exploding with stars.
He made puffy clouds and dry land and sparkling water.
He covered the Earth with deserts and mountains and planted forests and jungles.
He sprinkled the world with flowers and bugs and birds and fish and animals of all kinds.
It was a perfect home, full of fun creatures and God called all of it good.
But he wasn't done creating yet.
God said, "Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness so that they may
rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky over the livestock and
all the wild animals and over all the creatures that move along the ground."
This time though, God didn't just speak.
First, he took some dust from the ground.
Then he breathed into the dust with his own breath.
By doing that, he created the very first person, a man called Adam.
God put Adam in an amazing garden called Eden.
But Adam was different than the other living creatures God had made.
In fact, God put Adam in charge of everything else, but Adam needed a friend.
So the Bible says that God caused him to fall into a deep sleep.
While Adam was sleeping, God made a woman from one of Adam's ribs.
Her name was Eve, and she and Adam were free to
live happily in the garden where they could walk and talk with God.
It was perfect once Adam and Eve were together caring for the garden.
God didn't just call the world good, he called it very good.
See, people are God's favorite.
Remember we were made in his own image, in his likeness.
The Bible says, "God created mankind in his own image,
in the image of God. He created them, male and female, he created them."
We don't know exactly what it means to be created in God's image.
We do know it means he made us like him.
So our eyes, our skin, our teeth, our bones are perfectly crafted by God.
Our personalities, our sense of humor, our sensitivities,
our hobbies, our talents, everything is made by God so that we can be like him.
We have abilities that none of the animals have.
We can paint pictures and write poems.
We can solve math problems, explain what we're thinking and invent cool new things.
Whether we like to run, teach, build or anything else, God understands us.
Of course, we don't always act perfectly, but that's another part of the story.
When God made Adam and Eve, he crafted them in his image.
He made them, and us, like him.
And that's the story of how God made people.
So in case you missed it, here's the quick version.
God made the whole world.
It was a perfect home.
He called it good.
He breathed into dust and made Adam.
He took one of Adam's ribs and made Eve.
Then he called the world very good.
He made us like him, in his image.
He understands us, and we are his favorite.
And that's a part of God's story.
Oh, okay.
That's...that's helpful.
Um, tell me more.
They're wonderful, wonderful.
There's some helpful context in that video,
like the fact that God made the whole world, and he called it good.
Now, he did not say, "Oh, golly. This is perfect."
He said, "It was good."
And then, when he made humans, a person, it is homo sapiens.
And how do you say?
They're people.
He called them very good.
Again, he did not say perfect.
Now, this is a rather important point of fact because only God is perfect.
That's part of what makes him God.
If he were to create another being, another person as you might say, they would be perfect, too.
But they would still fall short of
pure affection because they would still have to be created by something else.
So they're not as perfect as the being that did not need to be created.
This dude is wiki smart.
Okay, now.
For example, let me ask you a question.
Which is more amazing, a painting
of the human being who painted that painting and a thousand other paintings?
The person.
Exactly.
Now, another question.
Which is more valuable, a uh a ten dollar bill,
a machine that can print ten thousand ten dollar bills every single day?
Oh the machine is way more valuable.
Exactly.
Now, furthermore where are my glasses?
Oh, they're in your pocket.
Theo
Oh, no.
These are for tennis.
Around your neck.
And this is my grandma's favorite necklace.
Wait, what about on your head?
Mae, that's ridiculous.
Why would I have it?
Oh, here they are.
Let's put this right on here.
Okay
Now, one of the most interesting parts about human beings is that we have the ability to choose.
We can say yes or no.
We're not robots.
We have freedom, and that freedom means we could choose to love and obey God
or not to love and not to obey God.
And that is exactly what happened.
Now that is a whole other can of worms.
Are you eating?
Oh, they're gummies.
Theo, thank you so much.
This is really helpful.
I still think it's a little bit confusing, but you gave me a lot of great stuff to think about.
Well, how could you be of service, Maybelline?
Where did I put my glasses?
Oh, I feel what Theological said made a lot of sense.
God is perfect, and he did make a perfect world, and he made people.
But he also gave people the ability to choose.
People could choose to love God, and people could choose not to love God.
And when people decided to disobey God, they were definitely not loving him.
There were consequences to people choosing to disobey God.
Now, the imperfect humans lived in an imperfect world.
But you want to know the good news?
You know I do.
The Bible says that God's power is made perfect in our weakness.
It's in 2nd Corinthians 12:9.
God's power is perfected in weakness.
She's right, says it right here.
We are imperfect.
We miss the shot.
We miss the mark.
We mess up.
We say the wrong thing.
We do the wrong thing.
We choose the wrong thing all the time.
And God, who is perfect and who is powerful, still loves us.
And when we choose to love him too, it means that we get to be a part of his family forever.
And one day, the world will be perfect again.
Because God's plan is still perfect, and God always finishes what he starts.
Speaking of finishing projects, did you know
a church in Barcelona, Spain has been under construction since 1882 and it's still not done?
The Great Wall of China is the longest structure ever built by humans.
It is impossible for most people to lick their own elbow.
Now, you know I just have to test that last fact.
Well, couldn't hurt to try.
I can't just sit here and not try to lick my elbow, too.
You know trying to lick my own elbow reminds me of something.
Just because we're not perfect doesn't mean we shouldn't try stuff.
As long as we remember that we don't have to worry about not being perfect, we never will be perfect.
But God has always been and will always be perfect.
That is in case you forgot what we've been talking about this whole time.
Hey, let's pray about this.
God, thank you for being perfect and thank you that I don't have to be.
Help me to remember that this week.
I love you.
Amen.
Now, remember my friend Sam from the beginning of the episode?
Yeah, that guy.
He's been working on a new kind of trick shot.
Check it out.
Oh
Wow
That's it.
Yes
That was awesome.
I love how Sam didn't give up, and I love how he celebrated when he finally made it.
See ya.
If you want to try to set up a ping pong trick shot of your own,
my friend Jen is going to show you how.
Hey, I'm Jen, and if you want to set up your own ping pong trick shot at home,
here's what you're going to need.
You're gonna need some ping pong balls.
I recommend getting more than one so that you're not chasing them all over the house.
Then you're gonna need some pots and pans.
Get an adult to help you out with this part.
Okay, you're gonna need some blocks or some books, just something to put the pot at an angle.
Then you just start trying.
What I have here is, I have my first pot set up.
It's on a block, and I'm gonna do this two times.
And now, I know where to put the second part.
Now, I know where to put the third pot.
We did a shot like this earlier with three pots.
We've made it in.
Check it out.
So if you decide to make your own trick shot, we want to see it.
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