The Iron Bowl

So the great thing about living a life following Christ is that you never fully arrive.  The farther I come, the more I grow and improve, the more I realize I will never stop needing to grow and improve.  Not only that, but I NEVER would have thought God would have used a football game to gently humble me.  

 Picture from en.wikipedia.org

As most of you know, along with the Thanksgiving weekend we also had the annual Iron Bowl.  It was intense to say the least.  Alabama made a lot of mistakes and Auburn, who is just incredibly lucky, brought the competition.  I'm not mad that they won.  I was mad at the referees.  The game was very close the whole way through, and there were some game-changing calls that screwed Alabama up completely.   I didn't feel like it was a fair game, and I would love to know who would have won the fair version of that game.  So what's the point?

Like I said, I was very mad at the referees.  I automatically assumed they were dirty.  They had to be getting paid from someone else to throw the game.  I've noticed that as I have gotten older I have no faith in people with power.  My assumption of every single politician in this world is that they are dirty, unhonorable, scandalous, untrustworthy, etc.  I have always looked for the best in people, but for whatever reason I have been completely and irrationally judgmental on those I honestly don't really know anything about. 

I realized this after "seeing" myself react to the game on Saturday.  In the game there were clearly and indisputably bad calls.  However, it could have been honest mistakes.  It doesn't automatically mean the officiators did that on purpose.  There are so many problems in our government, it is ridiculous.  That doesn't mean that every politician is crooked.  However, what I realized this weekend is that even if they are, it DOESN'T MATTER!!  

The honest truth of the matter is I'm no better than the worst of the worst and neither are you.  The truth is that those of us who have been saved had to be rescued from ourselves.  The truth is that there is an active, living, and sovereign God who knows all of our hearts and our intentions.  He knows the ones with good intentions and the ones with bad intentions.  I don't need to know.  I just need to trust him.  As the only one who can control anything, He is the only one who needs to know anyway.  So, I don't have to worry about the crooked politicians, or the unfair games and life circumstances.  I just have to trust my Savior.

I say all of this to say that I hope Brody doesn't grow up with the same cynical mindset as me.  I think it is getting more and more difficult not to be that way.  Things are slowly getting worse and worse.  I hope he can stay strong through the immorality, but also in a love for others that is balanced with wisdom.  That is my hope for him.