Posts Tagged ‘Sports’

National Day of Prayer

Saturday, April 27th, 2013

Heavenly Father, King of Kings and Lord of Lord, Ruler of all the nations, you have instructed us through your apostle to “pray every way you know how, for everyone you know. Pray especially for rulers and their governments to rule well so we can be quietly about our business of living simply, in humble contemplation. This is the way our Savior God wants us to live He wants not only us but everyone saved, everyone to get to know the truth we’ve learned: that there’s one God and only one, and one Priest- Mediator between God and us – Jesus, who offered himself in exchange for everyone held captive by sin, to set them all free.” (1 Timothy 2:1-6)

We pray for those elected to positions of leadership in our nation: all those in executive offices, all legislators and all judges. May they be guided by your wisdom and seek to serve you to promote justice and liberty in our land and throughout the world. May they uphold the truth of your holy Word, and standards of holiness in their legislation, judgments and administration.

We pray for all citizens, that we may be governed in our consciences by your moral law to do good, live honest lives, and be responsible in our work and in the choices we make.

We pray that marriage may be held in honor, that children be raised to honor their parents and be brought up in the training and instruction of the Lord.

We pray that our police, firefighters, emergency personnel, and military may be clothed with your armor as they seek to serve and protect: that they may take their stand against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil with the belt of truth buckled around their waist, fastened with the breastplate of righteousness, their feet fitted with the gospel of peace, taking the shield of faith, the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit.

We pray for our churches, that they may be the salt of the earth and the light of the world, faithful to the gospel of Christ they proclaim, built upon the foundation of the apostles, and filled with your love.

We pray for all organizations that minister compassion, charity and goodwill to the needy, that they may be effective in alleviating suffering and be led by people of integrity, and volunteers who seek to serve the least of those amongst us.

We pray for our schools, colleges and universities, that they may teach the truth, foster  a love of learning, and honor the historical legacy of our Western culture, the intellectual tradition of a classical education, the achievement of our founders, and respect the Constitution, the rule of law, and our Judaeo-Christian inheritance.

We pray for the media, those who influence through, the arts, entertainment and sports, all celebrities, that they may so live and work as those who will have to give account on the day of judgment for every careless word they have spoken. Raise up wholesome examples of people who produce in their lives the fruit of your Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.

We repent of any arrogance, pride and chronological snobbery, thinking that we know better than previous generations. Help us to value the achievements of the past, the sacrifices that have been made by those who have come before us so that we might enjoy the advantages of freedom, peace, comfort, and faith.

May we come together for the common good and foster an environment where those who come after us will learn from our  mistakes, and take action where we have been either unable or unwilling, so that this nation will be more truly one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

We ask all this, knowing our unworthiness but also your great mercy, in the strong name of Jesus our Lord and Savior. Amen.

 

Does God Care About Sports?

Saturday, March 31st, 2012

Timothy Dalrymple, in his blog on Patheos writes about Tim Tebow and Jeremy Lin. I commend it to you.

“Isn’t it degrading to suggest that God cares about sports? Isn’t that anthropomorphizing? Are we, like the ancient Greeks with their stories of gods who did all sorts of silly and petty and naughty things, really supposed to imagine that God dons a cheese-wedge upon his head and roots for the Packers?

With war and famine, death and disease, doesn’t God have better things to do? Aren’t sports beneath his dignity, unworthy of his time and station?

In the process of writing Jeremy Lin: The Reason for the Linsanity (official release date is May 8th), I had abundant opportunity to reflect upon these things. Tim Tebow had been congratulated by many in the media for not talking as though “God gave us the victory.” He thanked God less for the outcome of games than for the opportunity to play in them. When Jeremy Lin first came upon the scene, there were some criticisms even when “Linsanity” was at fever pitch. Jeremy seemed to talk as though God were involved in his basketball career in very intimate ways — as though God not only gave him abilities and opportunities, but gave him successful outcomes — hitting a shot, having a great night, getting the win.

Jeremy’s spiritual mentors and teachers have generally been Reformed. The books he cites as favorites are from John Piper and C.J. Mahaney, and Jeremy’s reflections on his life and career consistently refer to a close and careful divine sovereignty. It’s what theologians have called providentia specialissima, God’s most fine-grained care in the minutiae of our lives.

When people protest the notion that God should care about sports, they tend to be (1) atheists or agnostics who doubt God’s existence in the first place and find the notion of God caring about sports particularly ridiculous, (2) de facto Deists who believe that God created the order of things and then sits back to watch it all unwind, (3) people of faith who believe that God guides history (through natural or supernatural means) in the broadest sense but does not get involved in the sordid details, or (4) just people of faith who really haven’t thought it through.

Of course God cares about sports. The Christian God is not a God who refuses to get in the trenches, not a God whose dignity prohibits him from getting involved in the sordid details of human life. The single most distinctive doctrine in all of Christianity is the doctrine of the Incarnation. Not that God drinks and frolics in the heavens, but that God entered into history as a human being, fully God and fully man, sinless but suffering, enduring all the meager indignities of human existence. This was the scandal of Christ in the ancient world — a God who stooped into the muck of our common condition, who entered the world in the blood and detritus of birth, an incarnate God who (not to put too fine a point on it) had runny noses and infections and diarrhea and who got that goop you get in your eyes in the morning. He died naked and mostly abandoned, with spit and blood and grime upon his body, with thorns puncturing the crown of his head and nails piercing his hands and feet, and…well, I could go on.

God cares about the details, if for no other reason, because God cares about us. We should affirm common grace: that just as God ordains the sun to shine upon the righteous and the wicked alike, God ordains victory for believers and unbelievers. God does not simply give the victory to the most righteous individual or team upon the field. We should make clear that we cannot manipulate the outcome, as though the right formula of prayers and genuflections and “aw shucks” humility can compel God to grant victory. But we should also affirm, whether or not we’re Reformed, that God cares about the details and working through sports is not beneath God’s dignity.

Perhaps we can be a bit more precise. God does not care about sports in themselves. God cares about the people who play them. God cares about the people who watch and enjoy sports and whose lives are affected by sports. And God works through sports, as God works through all things, for the good of those who love him and are called according to his purpose. Training the body is, or can be, a profound and necessary school for the spirit. And in today’s age, when so many Christians live lives of comfortable complacency, when the rigor and striving of faith have been so terribly deemphasized, sports can serve an important role in reminding us of the importance of discipline and collective sacrifice in the pursuit of a greater goal.

So if sports can help us grow closer to God and more mature in our faith — and they can — then yes, God cares about sports for what can be accomplished through them.

What, then, can be accomplished through them? How do sports help us, as athletes and as spectators, to understand God, to witness God, to love and live with God better? Tune in tomorrow for my thoughts on that question.”