God and Sports...

“I don’t want to be remembered as the best baseball player ever. I want to be remembered as a great guy who loved the Lord, loved to serve the community and who gave back. “--Albert Pujols, SI, 2009

I am a sports fan. Fan is short for fanatic, in case you didn't realize that. For as long as I can remember, I've been pretty fanatical about sports. I was getting up and going to get the paper so I could read the sports section around age 5. I was blowing my dad and anyone else who would listen's mind with random statistics, rosters, and so forth for teams, local and professional alike, around that same age. I poured over programs and yearbooks for teams and sports. And all of this was in the days before you could look up anything you wanted to about anyone or any team you wanted to on Al Gore's famous invention. I played soccer for 5 years, and was good...i once scored 5 goals in a game we won 10-1...and played goalie in the second half. I played baseball for 10 years in city leagues...I was never the best but was one of those guys who was solid, could be counted on, and played just about everywhere...one season, I played every position but pitcher and catcher within that season. I played 3 years of football, and 4 years of basketball. I played intramurals in college, and on church league softball, basketball and volleyball teams.

I married a sports fan, and many of our vacations have included baseball games and other things like that, as have our last couple of youth mission trips. We watch a TON of sports on tv. I am good friends with some coaches, and a lot of my good friends are sports fanatics as well. I recently started playing fantasy football and have enjoyed the 2 seasons I've done that as well. New Year's eve Tracy and I spent a couple of hours at a Houston Rockets basketball game. The Rockets are a mediocre team and the team they played was worse. But it was fun nonetheless. The day after New Years, we went to a pretty awesome church that morning...and then to a Houston Texans/Jacksonville Jaguars football game. Again, the teams were fairly mediocre, but it was a great game and a ton of fun. If you've never been to a professional game, it is the height of fanaticism. Sure, local teams fans get a little crazy. Sure, Razorbacks fans are pretty nuts...especially this year during football season, and especially Tuesday night...facebook and twitter were riddled with statuses related to the game, etc, and people get very high and very low based on their performance. But professional sports events are filled with people giving themselves completely to their teams. They show it in their dress, in their emotions, in their words, in their excitement, in their enthusiasm, in their passion.

It got me thinking, a lot, about how we as Christians, far too often, especially in our churches, don't show nearly the fanaticism towards the things of God that sports fans show for their teams. 18,000 people crammed the Toyota Center to see a mediocre basketball team win on New Years Eve. 71,000 crowded into Reliant Stadium 2 days later to see the home team end a disappointing season by knocking their division rivals out of the playoff chase. What if we had that type of passion for Christ? What if we were that committed to Him? What if we cared that much about Jesus and following Him and the Church and the local church and its ministries and living out our faith? What if we got as 'rowdy' for Jesus as fans get for their teams? What if we were that enthusiastic and excited about God, about church, about being His hands and feet? What if we enjoyed our faith as much as we enjoy our sports teams? What if...? In the NIV there are something like 241 verses that deal with 'joy' in some capacity. Paul spent a lot of time in Philippians talking about joy. We need to live like our faith excites us. We need to show the world the joy of Christ and living for Him, instead of living like it's just another part of our lives, or worse, like practical atheists who may have made a decision we 'regret' because it sucked the life out of us instead of giving us joy and live as Jesus intends it to.

"I have come that they may have life, and have it abundantly (NASB and ESV)..." "I came so they can have real and eternal life, more and better life than they ever dreamed of..." (Message) "I came so that they could have life—indeed, so that they could live life to the fullest..." (Common English Bible) {JOHN 10:10)

SOUNDTRACK FOR A NOTE: "YOU ARE MY JOY" and "WE'VE ALREADY WON" BY DAVID CROWDER BAND