God cares about the details, if for no other reason, because God cares about us.
Posted on 04/01/2012 6:37:13 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
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.
Thanks for posting -and I agree with every word of the commentary.
Amen...
The single most distinctive doctrine in all of Christianity is the doctrine of the Incarnation.I'm not sure that means He gets involved in the details. What about the concept of Free Will? Where does that fit on the hierarchy of "distinctive doctrine" in Christianity?
If God cares about the details, why would he care more about the outcome of a football game than he did about the outcome of Hitler's death camps?
Obviously, in the latter he allowed history to take its course. Evil prevailed because humans chose evil of their own free will.
That principle somehow breaks down in sports? God directs the trajectory of a football, but not the path of a death train?
Doesn't make much sense to me.
I won't ruin the story for anyone who hasn't seen it, but I'd recommend it highly. I'd also recommend watching it 3-4 times to pick up on a number of nuances that can sometimes be very subtle.
It's also worth doing some research on the main characters to see just how important the religious element of the story is, in a way that isn't made clear in the movie. On the one hand the "religious" aspect of the story is somewhat diminished in the movie because Liddell's Christianity and Abrahams' largely secular Judaism appear to be two parallel tracks to the same end. But the truth can be found in "the rest of the story" ... which is the answer to this question that might have come to mind for anyone who has seen the movie more than once: Why does the opening scene of the movie involve a memorial service for Abrahams -- years after the 1924 Olympics -- in a Christian church?
double AMEN!!!!
God is sovereign. He gives and takes and we cannot do anything about it. God does not guide Lin’s balls. Lin can guide them perfectly, but God can fluke it to make it miss. Read about the fortunes and misfortunes of history. During Battle of Midway, the first strike of US navy on Japanese carriers failed but it alerted them that US carriers are nearby. So the Japanese launched all their scout planes in a wide arch. One of them spots the US carriers, but his radio fails (it was checked preflight and it was in working order). How come the plane with the radio destined to malfunction was placed in the search arc that would cover the area where the US carriers were? A flick of a placard in Japanese operations during planning could have placed another plane in its place. That is why some people who are involved with competition and conflict understands and very thankful to God because in moments and seconds despite our actions, hundreds of things can go wrong and change its outcome. IMHO God plays a key role. Like Napoleon once said - sometimes in war, a lucky general will suffice. Ancient Chinese military proverb - generals can plan, but only heaven will permit.
Great thread ping.
“I think number one is, what my mom and dad preached to me when I was a little kid: Just because you may have athletic ability and you may be able to play a sport doesn’t make you any more special than anybody else, doesn’t mean God loves you more than anybody else.”
Tim Tebow
“The United States has become a place where entertainers and professional athletes are mistaken for people of importance.”
Robert A. Heinlein
Free will is a myth that is constantly argued by Christians simply because they cannot understand how evil exist in the world. We cannot understand the purity of God nor the brokenness of man. Evil exist not because we "freely" choose to do evil. Evil exist because of our desire to do evil.
The essence of your question highlights this issue. Why would a loving God allow Hitler's death camp? Why not instead say, "Why would a loving God allow my little 'white' lie?" In true what we believe is that there are degrees of sin with God and God certainly should view Hitler's death camp far worst than our little white lie.
In actually to God ultimately sin is sin. And sin is what man desires to do in spite of everything that God chooses to do for us. This is the history of Israel and is just as true today. We are a stiff necked people. We want to sin. If God were to eradicate every sin in the world through conventional means, it would mean eliminating all of us. You may recall this nearly was the result of the Great Flood.
God allows a Hitler or even one of our own white lies to show us the reprecustion of our sin and to draw us toward Him. When David murdered Uriah, the result of his sin was the near destruction of his family and kingdom. But his sin drew him more closer to God and his understand was correct when David said, "Against you and you alone have I sinned." And if you think this is wrong, when there is a tragic event (e.g. tornado, earthquake, etc) one of the first thing people start doing is questioning their existence and flocking back to the churches. Yes, even atheist start up the boards about, "Where is God?"
God directs both the trajectory of a football and the path of a death train. However, every event is planned and calculated to help draw us towards Him. This is the great love of the Father-that in spite of our constant efforts to repel Him, He keeps trying to draw us to Him. Be it in a touchdown or a fatal death. People always seem to question His methods but His motives are very obvious.
God puts a Tebow or a Lin to be witnesses to what is greater than sports.
I disagree, the holy worship of sports, no way does God
approve. Keep Holy the Lord’s Day, the 3rd (4th for some
Christians) Commandment is not kept, instead, too many people sit in the stadiums and in front of the T.V. on Sunday instead of going to Church.
Maybe, Tebow goes to Church on Sunday? “Assembly” to gather together for worship is part of keeping the 3rd Commandment. Church comes from the word assembly.
I do respect Tim’s “purity” before marriage but he sold out doing the underwear commercial.
I disagree, the holy worship of sports, no way does God
approve. Keep Holy the Lord’s Day, the 3rd (4th for some
Christians) Commandment is not kept, instead, too many people sit in the stadiums and in front of the T.V. on Sunday instead of going to Church.
Maybe, Tebow goes to Church on Sunday? “Assembly” to gather together for worship is part of keeping the 3rd Commandment. Church comes from the word assembly.
I do respect Tim’s “purity” before marriage but he sold out doing the underwear commercial.
God cares about the hairs on our brush, the sparrow in the tree and the lilies in the fields ..so to think He has no interest in the affairs of men is to diminish Him..
Well said HarleyD. Have you ever seen this?
Voddie Baucham on Theodicy:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lD1yv4J6ohE
Excellent preaching. It’s refreshing to see some ministers still have their theology straight!
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