sports

A Prayer For All My Friends Who Run

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / Leave a comment

I may have mentioned this a time or two before, but I’ve gotten back into running. At least before I tweaked my knee. I’m probably the slowest runner ever and would probably get easily passed by power walkers, but I try. I can see how running could easily become an idolatrous obsession. At least for me, anyway. So here’s my prayer for all my friends who run, with the Country Music Marathon in mind.

Lord, I pray for my friends who will be running in the race this coming Saturday.

Give them a beautiful day to run in and may they feel Your pleasure over them as they run, knowing that the ability to run came solely for You. May they run only for Your glory.

Keep them from injuries and accidents and may their feet be swift and their hearts be overflowing and their joy be boundless.

May they be reminded every time they run about the Great Race that we’re all in, following in the footsteps of Jesus, who ran His race perfectly. May they keep their eyes on the Ultimate Prize, which is Jesus Himself.

Regardless of whether they have a chance of winning or not, may they finish well.

May we all run our race, not give up, and finish well.

In Jesus’ name,

Amen.

For the Underdogs

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The sports fan in me always love this time of year. It’s called March Madness for a very good reason. All the NCAA conferences are holding their championships, and while the usual suspects normally win these kinds of things, there’s always a chance that some lowly team will come out of nowhere and win 4 games in 4 days to get the automatic bid to the NCAA tournament field of 68.

Even if the team has played badly all year, they can suddenly catch fire and win. I saw a documentary about the 2008 SEC tournament when Georgia came out of nowhere to win 4 games, including 3 in a span of 30 hours to win the tournament.

I love underdogs, mostly because I used to be one. And so did you.

The Bible says that once we were without hope, alienated from God, strangers to the promise, and headed nowhere good. In basketball terms, we were nowhere close to getting an at-large bid to the NCAA tournament. We had pretty much lost every game by a large margin.

But God. The best parts of the best stories always start that way.

But God, being rich in mercy, made us alive.

We went from hopeless underdogs to champions in the moment it took God to make us alive. He made us more than conquerors through Jesus and promised to crush the enemy underneath our feet. Kinda like the way Vanderbilt beat Kentucky earlier today (with apologies to any UK fans reading this right now).

God has a heart for the underdog. The orphan, the widow, the outcast, the downtrodden, the poor in spirit. All those who know they are headed for certain defeat and know it will take a miracle to get a win. In fact, God blesses those who bless the underdog, who look after those who can’t look out for themselves and speak up for those who can’t speak up for themselves.

Come  Sunday, I will fill out my brackets and hope for the best, but if all the underdogs win, I’ll be okay with that.

My Sports Career

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I haven’t talked much about my athletic prowess, mostly because there’s not much to talk about in that department. My sports career was sad and short-lived, but at least I had fun. Mostly.

I tried gymnastics, which lasted all of maybe three sessions. I lost my love for it when I got the wind knocked out of me by running into the pommel horse and not timing my jump just right. The last straw was the rings, where I realized that I was indeed very much afraid of heights and not about to go upside down while I was 15 feet up in the air. Not on your life.

I’ll skip t-ball altogether, other than to say I was probably the first conscious objector to the sport, not leaving my sandbox to join the other players.

Soccer was fun, but it was mostly a spectator sport. Which is sad when you’re on the team. I don’t think I played much and when I was in the game, I observed from a great distance most of the time.

Ditto for basketball. I think I scored all of two points in my church league career, both of which came on free throws when a player from the other team, for some completely insane reason, fouled me when I got the ball. Did he think I was really going to go all Michael Jordan on him and dunk in his face?

Now I tend to spectate more than participate. I admire people who are really good at sports, good enough to make a living at it. I realize that probably only one tenth of one percent of all athletes make it to the pros. The other 99.9% greatly exaggerate their careers and boast about how they could have dunked on Michael Jordan.

Now if there had been organized badminton leagues when I was growing up, I would have totally ruled. Unfortunately, that was the 80’s and I can only wonder what might have been.