Imagine your favorite Christmas morning you can ever remember. You wake up and it takes you an incalculably small amount of time to remember what day it is. The living room is still only lit by the lights on the tree and you see the largest pile of gifts you've ever seen. Your parents have followed you down the stairs just to see the look on your face. And you still haven't even opened your gifts! The potential alone has given you a smile that shines brighter than o' tannenbaum!
When God created man the first thing man ever saw was God's face. "Then the Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being." Genesis 2:7. It is important to remember that God initiated the relationship between Him and man (with an awkward nose kiss of all things!) and that man, Adam, did not see anything else before gazing onto the face of God.
So what does that have to do with sports?
If we are going to engage in sports faithfully, righteously even, we have to engage the world as God would have us: with seeing Him in sports first.
Now, trust me, I know we can't "see" God, but we can prioritize relating to Him first, or "utmost" in the midst of our playing of any sport or game. That initial step to engaging with God, no matter what you are doing, is gratitude.
We "enter His gates with thanksgiving," (Psalm 100:4) as a primary step to enter His presence. And again in 1 Timothy 4:4-5 (with an addition from me) we read, "For everything God created [including sports] is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, because it is consecrated by the word of God and prayer."
The key word here is received. When you go to play a sport or even watch a sport, you didn't come by it through entitlement. This opportunity has been given to you.
You woke up Christmas morning, and your favorite sport was there, latent with potential. And your Father longs to see the look on your face when you unravel sports bindings.
That's why we should engage in sports and how we should engage in sports. Think about how much less cheating or anger or ejections or greed would be in sports if we remembered that it's all a gift to us! On the flip side, think about how much more exciting sports would be if we played with an awe, respect, and anticipation akin to Christmas morning!
And if we do gratefulness right, we can even relate to God Himself by playing sports, watching sports, and even (properly) loving sports. Wouldn't your parents want you to go ahead and open your gifts? In the same way our Father wants us to engage in sports, one of His good gifts to us.
Next time: more on God creating sports for us.
