ASI Pacific Union 2014: Building Bridges

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ASI Pacific Union

Grace Daley

From Big City Basketball to Big City Evangelism

Alright, I was waiting for my turn and my turn was apparently here.

And I was still sitting there waiting for my turn.

Alright, I'm really happy to be here this evening on this beautiful Sabbath day.

It's been an amazing, incredible mission.

And I love the opportunity to share my testimony.

How many of you by show of hands has ever heard my testimony before?

All right I see a lot of hands and that's exactly why today you're gonna get an abbreviated version you're still gonna get the story you're gonna get the gist of it but then you're gonna get something that's gonna connect with what we're doing right now, the big city evangelism.

So if you can, for a moment, just please bow your heads and close your eyes.

I'd like to start out with a word of prayer.

Dear Lord, thank you again for the opportunity to be here.

I just ask that everything I say come directly from you and that my words can be used to inspire us to go forth and do your mission.

All these things I ask in your name, amen.

I was a former professional basketball player.

I played in the Women's National Basketball Association, the WNBA, and I played on 4 different WNBA teams in America, the Minnesota Lynx, the New York Liberty, the Houston Comets, and the Phoenix Mercury.

And I played overseas for 7 years on, oh, so many different teams.

3 years in France, 2 years in Italy, 1 year in the Czech Republic, a part of a season in Spain, and a few days in Russia.

All right, and some of you guys know that story.

Well here's what happened my story actually is very simple.

I decided to stop playing professional basketball.

I walked away from that career so I could faithfully observe the Sabbath.

And as much as you guys are saying amen, and I appreciate that, not everybody liked that idea.

Not everybody agreed with that decision that I made.

Because some people encouraged me to keep playing and they told me, Grace, this is the gift God gave you.

You have to use this gift to glorify Him.

I realized that the gift God gave me wasn't basketball.

The gift God gave me was His Word, right?

The Word of God is the most amazing gift that's ever been given to mankind.

The Bible says, in the beginning was the word and the word was God and the word was with God.

The word is God and in the word is the 10 Commandments.

And right there in the middle of the 10 Commandments there's the Sabbath.

And that was the focal turning point in my career, in my life actually.

And just To be clear, I always make this statement so everybody knows I did not give up my career to keep the Sabbath.

Sounds strange, but I actually gave in to Christ to be completely obedient to Him.

And part of that obedience was faithfully observing the Sabbath.

Anytime we think we're giving something up, right?

Anytime we think we're giving something up or we're making a big sacrifice for Jesus, we need to realign ourselves, right?

He's the 1 that gave everything up for us.

And our job is so simple, that's why God is so good.

We just have to give in to him and let him take control of our lives.

You give in to Jesus, That's when you start making incredible gains, and that's when my life took an amazing turn of 180 and dramatic things started happening So here's the bottom line.

I love being on a team So I'm still on a team right now.

It's just not 1 of those teams I mentioned before.

The team I'm playing for right now is the Jesus team.

And you know what's so cool about this team?

I've been on teams where we have all these rules and rules and rules.

And those laws weren't written by any man.

Those laws were written by the hand of God.

On this Jesus team, there are a lot of people that are making up rules, okay?

And the most fun I've had is with people that are going by God's laws.

And the most interesting, and I use that term very loosely, the most interesting scenarios I've encountered are when people are just making up their own rules and following them.

So if we look back, and I'm gonna go back to my basketball career again to Exodus 28 to 11.

We all know about the 10 commandments right there.

Commandment number 4, remember the Sabbath day, keep it holy, and that's when you should rest.

And that's what I call, I refer to the Sabbath now as God's, it's time out, right?

But Here's the thing, you guys, you have to know this.

I'm currently a kindergarten teacher, and when I look out to the audience, I'm used to a lot of feedback.

So I'm gonna try that time out scenario again, okay?

So what I look at the Sabbath as now is when God calls a big time out.

I feel like I'm back in class again, I feel good.

And I took off the last 4 days, it was a blessing to be here.

So God calls a big time out and After working on this incredible mission, I bet you guys were ready for that time out when the Sabbath rolled around, right?

I gave everything I had, every play, every game.

Everybody could count on that at all times.

And I would be looking over at my coach at times, just begging and praying, call a timeout, I'm tired, call a timeout.

And here's what I think we can all learn from this mission, that the way you worked on this mission shouldn't just end here, right?

This is the way we should work in our workplace, in our schools, in our communities, day in and day out.

Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not telling anybody to stay up late, and I know what Dr.

Lewis went through to accomplish this mission, right, so sometimes we make those kind of sacrifices.

But I'm just saying we need to be constantly working like we're on a mission right Jesus came down here with a very focused and very intentional goal of serving people in meeting their needs and that's exactly how we need to live But we must remember to get appropriate rest, right?

And appropriate rest, here's a little commercial break, is if you're an adult, you should be in bed by 10 p.m.

And get 7 to 8 hours of quality sleep every single night.

When you are working for God on this mission and you're getting appropriate rest.

Because I hear about people getting burned out on their jobs all the time.

But let me tell you what happens to Christians.

You don't get burned out, you start getting fired up, all right?

So Christians get fired up when they're on a mission for Jesus.

And just to give you a quick visual, if you haven't heard my testimony before, I just wanna give you a quick visual to make this obvious to why I had to change my career as a professional basketball player.

The schedule for the Jesus team, it's simple.

You work Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and on Friday evening, God calls a big timeout.

And you go to the sideline and you listen intently to what your heavenly coach has to say, right?

We're realigning ourselves with his game plan.

So you heard the schedule for the Jesus team, and some of you guys have seen this before, and no matter how many times I see it, it's still fascinating to me, because now I'm gonna show you the schedule for a typical sports team, Okay?

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From Big City Basketball to Big City Evangelism

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