MADE IN GOD'S IMAGE - COACHES

Deuteronomy 4:24 For the LORD your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God.

God and jealousy don't seem like words that belong in the same sentence. Jealousy usually has a negative connotation. We usually think of jealousy in terms of envy and disdain. But God's jealousy is not negative. It is actually one of the most humbling compliments he could give us.

God's jealousy is a complex passion for our good. It is an intimate commitment to our well-being. It is a fiery refusal to be indifferent to our weaknesses and deficiencies. God refuses to sit by and
casually watch us settle for a mediocrity.

Coaches (good ones) provide an excellent picture of this type of love. Athletics are a microcosm of life. Pride and complacency are traps faced everyday. Highs change to lows in a matter of seconds. Selfishness is always threatening everything.

It is a coach's job to teach players to find a way to make the most of their individual abilities in the midst of the battle. The best coaches mix strength and gentleness, toughness and grace, the highest demands with great understanding. Coaches should have an intense refusal to allow their players to settle for less than their best, and at the same time love the players when they don't measure up. Coaches should get angry, not at their players, but for their players. The anger should be grounded in knowing what the players are capable of accomplishing.

This type of love cannot be given without deep knowledge of the players. Nobody can pretend to know what someone is capable of accomplishing. A fake will be identified quickly. Likewise, this type of love has to be sincere and unselfish. Virtuous jealousy is impossible with personal ambitions that outweigh value of the player.

So, next time you see Bobby Knight 'advise' a player on how to properly run motion offense or Bill Belichick gently reminding Rodney Harrison not to cheat, remember you're witnessing a glimpse of God's glory. He has chosen to reveal himself in the oddest of creatures - coaches.

Sports, Culture, and God's Glory

I had a professor in college that was always talking about the lenses through which we see the world around us. He was the first to teach me that everybody has a worldview, or a foundation that lies at the root of how the rest of the world is seen and experienced. I have recently realized an inconsistency between my faith and my love of sports.

I heard these quotes from Kevin Twit in a lecture on Faith and Pop Culture:

"Even if you're not seeking to glorify God, if you're a Christian or a non-Christian, you're using stuff that God made to glorify himself, and his glory still breaks through. You can't help it. I tell people (and sometimes Christians get upset) that Marilyn Manson uses the creativity God gave him to curse his name. He can't help it. He probably wouldn't be happy about me saying that. "

"Everything fails to glorify God as it should and nothing fails to glorify God at some level because he has left himself with a witness."

Twit didn't comment on sports in his lecture, but he could have. Sports has taken on a dominant role in our culture. I have heard athletes compared to the gladiators of old. While I see the similarities, I think there is a greater connection between athletes and the ancient gods than the ancient gladiators.

Think about what we want from athletes. We want greatness with humility, power with grace, transcendence with nearness. We don't want to watch a game. We want to worship. No wonder athletes (from middle schoolers to professionals) are screwed up. We have elevated worshipers to the place of receiving worship. We have traded the Creator for His creation.

The easy (and thoughtless) solution to the problem is to just label sports as bad and avoid competition so we don't get tangled up in sin and idolatry. But to do that would be neglecting to give God the glory he is due for his creation (aka - sin).

Athletes are amazing. It takes skill and grace to hit a 90 mile-an-hour fastball, shoot a 20 foot jump-shot, or perform an Olympic dive. The men and women who are gifted enough to do these things were made by the God who knew them and formed them in their mother's womb. They were knitted together by and for the Lord of the universe. Every good gift, including passes, shots, and dunks is from God. Athletes, like trees, rivers, artists, and the rest of God's creation are here for his glory.

So, if you love sports, thank and worship God. He is Lord of all, even free-throws.

Role Playing - I Wanted it to be You

I moved from Southern California to Nashville almost fifteen years ago, and I am still FASCINATED by SEC football fans. You cannot truly understand what it is like unless you have lived here.

I work with a Tennessee fan and a Georgia fan. They are both women and were converted by Tebow's Heisman speech. They told me how badly they wanted to hate him, but their hatred of Florida wasn't strong enough to keep them for falling for Tim. He was what they always wanted. Sure, Peyton came off squeaky clean, but I don't remember any prison ministry. And I guess Georgia had David Green, but still he was no Tim Tebow. As I was listening to them explain how they had fallen for the one they had hated three days earlier I thought of this movie clip from my wife's favorite movie.

So, for your first installment of Role Playing:

Meg Ryan will be playing the role of all SEC mothers and daughters

Tom Hanks will be playing Tim Tebow.

Too bad his dog isn't a bulldog or a hound.

Asterisks and 'The Mitchell Report'

I have been kicking around the idea of starting a sports website for about a year. I have wrestled with whether or not I should just write about sports on my Abundant Redemption site or just create another site. I firmly believe God is Lord and King of all, including sports. So, I don't think I would be compromising Abundant Redemption by writing about sports from time to time, but everyone has told me that you need to be specific for people to want to read your site. In that vein, I decided it would be best to just create another site and link between the two.

So, I had my idea, but I haven't really had the time, motivation, or ideas for the actual posts lately. That all changed yesterday because of steroids.

I have had a cold for three weeks. I was trying to just ride it out, but I woke up yesterday and decided I needed to go see a doctor. I was sick of feeling sick. The doctor listened to my breathing, looked in my ears, and told me to bend over. I wasn't expecting number three. Anyway, it was a Cortizone shot and it worked and worked and worked. I went to bed at 8:00 last night. I didn't even have a name for the new website. Between 8 and 6:24 I slept about three hours. Lots of time to think. I think I wrote about six posts in my head during the night.

Tomorrow 'The Mitchell Report' is supposed to be released. I don't think they will mention steroid using bloggers, but just to beat them to the punch if they do, I wanted to let you know this website needs an asterisk. I'm not sure if it ever would have happened without the use of performance enhancing drugs. I hope you will still read.

I can tell you I never knowingly took steroids.

Here are some before and after shots.

The only real difference is now I bat left-handed.