“That was a foul! Surely ref! Come on! Are you blind?! Send him off! Red card! At least a yellow card! At least a penalty! At least some acknowledgement that the guy is writhing in agony on the ground with a broken leg!” It’s at this time of year, during the Soccer World Cup, that I must admit that I don’t understand the round-ball game. What I think is a foul, is not; and vice versa. (Which is why I stick to the more predictable code of football.)

The same confusion can sometimes exist in the Christian life. The apostle John wrote a number of pastoral letters, one of which contains an interesting sentence on the topic of being accused of foul play: “This then is how we know that we belong to the truth, and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence whenever our hearts condemn us. For God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything.”

John is addressing those times in the Christian life when our hearts cry out “Hypocrite!” and when our circle of family and even church-family cry out “Red Card! Send him off!”, and when we stand confused in the spotlight, unable to smile and unable to pray. But God knows what has happened, and reads the motives and the heart’s real desires – he knows that we were truly going for the ball and not trying to break someone’s leg – and so he blows the whistle and calls “Play on!”.