Our Precarious Position

A high school football coach in Muskogee, OK accidently struck a boy with his car a few days ago. Tulsa World has the latest on the incident here. Apparently the boy was on a bike when the accident happened. The boy had scrapes, but appeared fine, so the coach called the boy's parents, his athletic trainer to look at the injuries, and a nurse happened to be at the scene. The coach had practice to attend, so he then left the scene with the boy in care of others. He didn't call the police, though, and pretty soon after the accident it was determined the boy had a broken collar bone.

This, obviously, is turning into a nightmare for the coach, who also said some insensitive-sounding things to a reported later that night. He may be facing criminal charges now of failure to report an accident or some such.

At first blush, I thought this story was about a cocky coach. Here in Oklahoma, football is a god, and the coaches are darn near that too. I'm not using hyperbole; it's a real spiritual problem. But as I heard his interview last night on the ten o'clock news, I reconsidered. It's the story of a harried professional in the public eye who made a mistake--the same kind of mistake that any one of us could similarly make. The difference between him and I --and the rest of us--is a single decision, which at the time probably didn't seem as critical and important as it was.

Disaster, disgrace, a great and terrible fall is really only a decision away. Sin is crouching at our doors too (Gen 4:7). "Pride goes before destruction, And a haughty spirit before a fall." (Proverbs 16:18 NKJV)