Let me preface this by saying I'm a huge fantasy football fan. I'm in no way telling you that you should or should not play the game. With that said, I want to use this game of statistics to make a spiritual comparison. I have been playing fantasy football with my church buddies for years. For those who do not know how the game works, at the start of the National Football League season you draft players for your fake team. Players can be from any of the 32 teams in the league. Based on how those players preform in their real game, you are awarded points. The goal is just like real football, if you score more than your opponent than you win. Based on your record, you can qualify for the playoffs and have a chance to win your league championship. Most of the time if a player is having a rough year and there's no hope for the playoffs, then he/she will quit. This leads me to the "meat and potatoes" of today's blog entry.
This year, I was asked to be "co-manager" of my best friend's fantasy team. He and his wife's son was due around the time the NFL season was starting, so he needed an extra man to help run his team. This league is unlike any league I have ever played in. The league consists of fourteen teams, the draft was in person with a huge draft board projected onto a screen, and they also do weekly podcasts. Me and my buddy spent weeks either texting back and forth, or in person talking about our strategy for the season. So fast forward past the draft, to where we are at the season's halfway point. We currently reside in 8th place, with a 3-5 record, and the fifth most points scored in the league. Yes we have had some rotten luck. My best friend and I are very competitive guys and we have had some fickle moments this season. Just this past Monday night, we had about a thirty point lead on our opponent. The only player he had left was Pittsburgh Steelers backup quarterback Mason Rudolph. The Monday night matchup was between the 2-4 Steelers and the 0-6 Miami Dolphins. My buddy text me Sunday night and said something to the extent of "Rudolph is average at best and there's no way he can beat us." My fickleness came out and I responded along the lines of "Well he's facing the Dolphins so if he's going to go off and have a career game, this is his prefect opportunity." In a few minutes my buddy responded and said "I'm not worried." In the first half of the game things looked really good for us, as Rudolph had recorded -4 fantasy points at one point. Thinking he was only going to have 1 point for the half, the Dolphins threw an interception with about two minutes left, giving the Steelers the ball. Rudolph and the Steelers offense proceeded to march down the field, where he threw a touchdown pass. At the half, what should have been a one point yield from Rudolph had ballooned to nine points. Our lead had gone from thirty to about twenty points.
At the half I text my buddy and said "Dude I'm officially worried." He responded and said "They're terrible, I'm still not worried." Shortly after coming out of halftime, Rudolph threw his second touchdown pass of the night. Luckily for us this gave the Steelers the lead and meant that they wouldn't be playing from behind and could run the ball more, or so we thought. The Steelers kept trying to take shots down the field and at one point they had a guy wide open, but luckily for us Rudolph missed him. My buddy text and said "Good thing he didn't catch that, that would have ended us." After many more minutes of sitting on pins and needles, the game finally ended and the Steelers won 27-14, Rudolph recorded 20.55 fantasy points, but we won our matchup 174.10-167.20. Needless to say this was closer than either of us wanted it to be, but a win is a win. What I want you to learn from this, is that with fantasy football, or anything else, we can all be fickle. Notice how both of our emotions roller coasted throughout that game. But what about in our Christian walk? How do we avoid being fickle? Consider this way:
Trust God in all things. When things don't go our way, how easy is it for us to blame God? Why do we always blame him? Well I think it is because we can't see God, he doesn't answer right away, and we are used to airing our "dirty laundry" to him anyway, so we think we have the right to blame him for everything that goes bad in our lives. Think about this, when everything in our lives are going great, who do we thank? God When everything in our lives are going terrible, who do we blame? God We are a fickle society. We don't blame ourselves, we often let our faith waver, and the result is that we question God. During my beloved Vanderbilt Commodores baseball team's run to the College World Series championship, I wavered back and forth playing arm chair manager in every decision that Coach Tim Corbin made. The fact is, Coach Corbin knows more about baseball than me and probably everyone reading this combined. There's a reason he's the best coach in college baseball. Obviously no one knows more about anything than God. God knows what's going to happen this afternoon, tonight, tomorrow, and tomorrow night. Why do we love him when things are going good, and then question him when everything is going sideways?
I want to leave you with two passages of scripture that I am constantly reminding myself of. In Romans 8:28, Paul tells the church at Rome "And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to his purpose." Focus on that first part of the verse though. Paul, speaking through God told the Romans and tells us that if we love God, then everything will come out in a positive way. Will it always be the way we want it to? Of course not? But as long as we love God, and never question him, then everything will turn out for the best. How comforting is that? Another verse that we should take comfort in is found in Proverbs 3:5-6. It says "Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him and He shall direct your paths." We become so fickle sometimes, that our faith in God wavers. But the fact that as long as we trust Him, "He will direct our paths," that's the most comforting thing in the world. Do these passages mean that we will never find ourselves being fickle with him? Of course not. We are all imperfect humans, living in an imperfect world. Whether it's in your Christian walk, your family, your job, or your fantasy football team, never lose your faith in them.
In Him,
Carver Moore
We would be honored for you to join us for worship at the Chestnut Mound church of Christ.
Our service times are as follows:
Sunday Morning Bible study: 10 am
Sunday morning worship: 11 am
Sunday evening worship: 5 pm
Photo at top courtesy of ESPN.
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