Football was on at the gym.
Boo.
I am not so interested in the sport that I want to see clips of last night’s highlights.
I do pretend to care about the Cowboys to prove my love for Mr. Fantastic, and if UCLA is playing I feel an obligation to pay attention to the score, and that’s about it.
But there they were: the NFL highlights.
Player after player running and diving into the end zone for touchdowns.
I began to notice how they treated the ball after crossing the line.
Some flung it down, dropping it haphazardly, as if it was not important at all. They seemed to act as if the ball had little importance in light of their own athletic ability.
Others intentionally seemed to try to throw it through the earth itself. Showing their immense strength and power over the ball was how they celebrated.
I considered these responses to victory.
Without the ball, crossing into the end zone would be meaningless, no matter how awesome the athletic ability the feat required.
Without a person to carry it, the ball cannot possibly score on its own. Someone must overcome the opposition and take the ball where it can be of use.
I suddenly saw something else in this reel: the ball is the gospel and we are the players.
We ought not consider ourselves and our talents so great that we can drop the gospel carelessly, as if it means nothing and we are “the show”. Without a gospel message in our hands, we are just running up and down the field of life, doing lots of things that hardly impact the end goal.
We also shouldn’t grab the gospel and try to drill it into the world, throwing it with all our strength, watching it bounce erratically around once we bring it to its destination. The gospel needs skill and care to be presented properly, and our own display of personal power silences its impact.
No, we need the gospel to fulfill purpose, and God asks us to be responsible with the most important message He has sent.
I am grateful for football now, as I watch these men on TV fling themselves at one another just to get a ball somewhere.
I never would have thought of them as ambassadors before, but I guess I do now.
