Quiet day, thus far, trust it
will continue. Blaze is outside and
conversing from time to time with a neighbor dog, but not a lot of barking by
either.
‘tis a pretty day.
We had one birthday already this
week and have three more birthdays tomorrow – hard to believe our clan is
getting older.
Exodus
20:3 Thou shalt have no other gods before
me.
As Christians we realize that
this verse refers to things other than things we call gods – they are things
that we treat as gods.
In America we have many people
we idolize. Sportsmen, musicians,
actors, folk heroes, even some politicians are idolized by their followers.
There are many examples, but let
us just concentrate of sports, as that is what I have been thinking about these
past few days.
Last Saturday the Michigan
football team was within 10 seconds of defeating the Michigan State football
team. It was a win they had been looking
forward to for several years.
The ball was hiked to the kicker
– an Australian student who had experience in rugby, but very little experience
in American football – he fumbled the ball.
Instead of dropping and covering the ball, he tried to kick it and it was
blocked and caught by an opponent who went on to score a touchdown.
To the Michigan fans this was a
catastrophe. The poor kicker started
getting death threats via social media.
One commentator, a Michigan
graduate, was so heartbroken his friends were calling him to make sure he was
okay. He said he had gone home, picked
up his two year old daughter – put a tape on and watched her watched the TV for
several minutes, numb with the realization of the defeat. (Interesting that he didn’t realize that
child was more important that the game, but he was in despair and not thinking
correctly.....)
The game is almost a week old
and he is still having a difficult time dealing with the loss, the first couple
of days he could barely do his job he was so distraught.
I am not condemning this man, he
is just one of millions of football fans that have placed their teams or certain
players on a high pedestal and when they falter or fail they are cast into
despondency.
Sporting apparel of teams,
college and professional, is available in all forms – NFL recently developed a
women’s and a child’s line of clothing, even baby attire so fans could express
their show of support for their favorite players on their favorite teams.
Billions of dollars are being
made by the manufactures.
It has come to the point where a
fan must be careful where they wear their jersey or other item – if they are in
the wrong place they could be beaten up by someone(s) who support another
team.
It is shear madness. We have placed so much emphasis on the
sports, the teams and players, they are like gods. We see fans scream in ecstasy as they meet
their favorite players, fawning over them doing everything they can to win their
approval.
Those that have a great talent
to perform get treated with kids gloves.
If they do something wrong, it is covered up or treated as ‘boys will be
boys’ and written off to being a kid.
I listened as commentators were
talking about a certain quarterback who has a great arm and talent for making
things happen on the field. But, he has
been in trouble since he joined the league, his off field antics are deplorable
– and I am sure if people took a hard look at his high school and college days
he was probably given many passes because he was a ‘star athlete.’
As they were speaking one asked
the other if it was time for that person to be kicked off the team – the other
said, no, he is just a kid – he is only 22 years old and still learning.
22 years old. He isn’t a kid, in the strictest sense (I all
to often call 40+ year olds, kids) but he is extremely immature. He has not been held responsible for his
actions and it is excuses like this that enable him to continue making poor
choices and doing ‘stupid’ things.
Yet, his jersey was one of the
hot sellers.
Other parts of the world have
their own sports teams that we can’t live without, that they spend their own
billions of dollars for their sports apparel.
We are really no different than
those that worshiped Baal and other false gods, putting them first. Having idols made to represent the gods and
worshiped them.
The priority doesn’t include
God; in fact in many cases, He is no longer a factor, our other gods take
precedence.
I enjoy football. I enjoy watching those at the top of their
game compete against each other. I don’t
have a favorite team, rather I enjoy watching certain players and will watch
that game over others. I have to be very
careful that my attraction for the game doesn’t interfere with my relationship
with God.
It is a real threat that I must
be aware of, it is very easy to get caught up in hype and forget our priorities
– and it could be anything, anything.
We need to re-evaluate, daily,
who we serve and make sure that service is to God.
Later, Art :-)
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