One of my favorite things in the entire world is a sports
movie.  Particularly, a sports movie that
is geared for a younger audience.  If I
was to make a list of my favorite movies of all time there is no doubt that
films like The Sandlot, Mighty Ducks, and Space Jam would make the list.  What I really love about these sports movies
is that even though they are about different sports, even though they are set
at different times and in different parts of the universe, they still manage to
all follow a very similar narrative arc.
Here’s how it works:

First, we are introduced to some generic sports team. 
It doesn’t matter, basketball, baseball, football, softball, hockey, soccer,
team whatever.  What we learn is that this sports team is really bad at
their sport!  They lose all the time and don’t really seem to understand
the simplest aspects of the game!  But then, they are suddenly given some
reason to play well.  They need to win lots of games or something bad will
happen.  But it’s hopeless!  They are so bad at sport!  And
then, there’s some new coach who has come to town that’s going to take this
hopeless, rag tag sports team to the championship.   And so the coach
walks in to the first practice and sees the players running into each other, dropping
the ball, missing shots, scoring on the wrong goal – the coach sees for the
first time just how terrible this team really is and then – and this is the
most important moment – and then the coach takes a deep breath and says with
the utmost confidence, “I can work with this.”

I believe, that this is how God sees us.  No matter what mess we get ourselves into, no
matter what mistakes we make, no matter how unfaithful and undeserving we might
be, God looks at us time and again and God takes a deep breath and says, “I can
work with this.” 

We are going to make mistakes.  We won’t be perfect, we
will mess up, time and time again we will make decisions that are hurtful and
harmful and destructive to ourselves and others.  But in the infinite
goodness of God, in the infinite creativity of our Creator, in the infinite
Holiness of the Holy Spirit, God will see these mistakes and God will take a
deep breath and say, “I can work with this.”