A Pivot! (Happy March Madness)

~By Sharon Czerwien

For those who care—Happy March Madness!

In fact, as I push “publish” on this blog post, two of the great collegiate female teams are about to commence their championship game. The men’s championship game follows tomorrow.

If you do not care about basketball, no problem! I’ll make this post brief and (hopefully) you will find a beneficial life analogy at the end.

The Basketball “Pivot”

If you have ever watched basketball, you have probably heard of the pivot. I enjoyed reading about the specifics from the website https://www.rookieroad.com/basketball/101/pivoting/.

In essence, the pivot is when the basketball player who is holding the ball is given permission to rotate on that pivot foot, but that foot is not supposed to leave the ground.

So what!?

Pivoting allows the basketball player to have some leeway to either more easily shoot, find a person to pass the ball to, or to allow the ball handler an opportunity “legally” edge away from a defender.

If the player does not use the pivot foot correctly, the referee has the authority to call the player out for a “traveling violation.”

The aforementioned website gets into many more neat specifics about the rules, but I will leave it at this:

A basketball player must use his or her feet correctly (within the specific rules of the game) in order for the game to go smoothly.

The Bible “Pivot”

The Bible (lovingly) shows us what to do with our feet, too. (I probably should not call it the “Bible Pivot” but here I go!)

Considering the Bible does not touch on all the 'gray areas' in life, Christians have certain freedoms about where to go and what to do. We have leeway, at times, on what is an acceptable “rotation/pivot” in life. However, God has also lovingly given us directions on how to properly use our feet.

1. Turn our feet towards God’s commands (and not delay our obedience):

Psalm 119:59-60

“I thought about my ways, and I turned my feet to Your testimonies. I made haste, and did not delay to keep Your commandments” (NKJV).

2. Keep our feet away from evil:

Psalm 119:101

“I have restrained my feet from every evil way, that I may keep Your word” (NKJV).

3. Let God direct our steps

Psalm 119:133

“Direct my steps by Your word, and let no iniquity have dominion over me” (NKJV).

4. Pay attention to where our feet take us:

Proverbs 4:26-27

“Ponder the path of your feet, and let all your ways be established. Do not turn to the right or the left; remove your foot from evil” (NKJV).

Let’s pivot well in life. May our life “rotations” live up to the standards found in the Bible.

Take care,

Sharon