Thoughts on the World Cup

I loved watching the World Cup. I watched as many games as I could and I even kept up a little scorecard all the way through the tournament. I grew up playing soccer and after living in Mexico during two World Cups, I have felt more of the excitement and importance that the rest of the world places on this month-long tournament. We, in the United States, have four or five other sports that we think of as more important, but soccer is the world’s sport and virtually every other country in the world esteems their great national soccer players as something just shy of gods.

I noticed something this World Cup that made me think of my spiritual life. In one of the games (I don’t remember which one), the ball went out of bounds and when the player threw it in to a teammate, the referee called him for an illegal throw-in. I immediately thought that was funny since throwing the ball in is such a basic, fundamental thing that little kids learn to do it in their first few soccer lessons. The ball was given to the other team and when their player went to throw it in, he also got called for an illegal throw-in. I laughed about it as the ball was given again to the first player who had committed the violation. He threw the ball in again, and was called again for an illegal throw-in. I couldn’t believe it. The ball went back to the other team and finally somebody got it right.

Here we have the world’s greatest players of the world’s greatest sport, and they can’t even manage to do something so basic three times in a row. I realize that they don’t really practice throwing the ball in anymore since it is something that they learned as kids and have been doing for so long, even if not exactly according to the rules anymore. But fundamentals are the key to success in any endeavor. I imagine that for kids it would be much more fun to try to learn the newest ball-handling tricks that they see their soccer heroes doing instead of spending hours alone juggling the ball.

I think that I am so often the same way in my Christianity. My tendency is to want new ideas and strategies from the latest books to motivate me to pursue my joy in Christ more and more. There is nothing wrong with many of the great books that motivate us and guide us in our walks. But I forget how to do the basics like prayer, meditation and personal study of Scripture. I lose sight of what it is that will really satisfy me most deeply-God Himself. This tendency is very frustrating to me. I want to find my soul deeply satisfied in my personal times of prayer, meditation and Bible study. I want to truly believe God’s promises to be my true, sovereign Joy, as Augustine said.

Please pray for Julie and me as we are entering into marriage. We want to find our deepest satisfaction in God alone so that we will be filled with the fruits of righteousness in our relationship. We want to be able to love each other from an overflow of joy in God rather than trying to meet our needs in each other. It will be easy to forget the basics of deep spiritual growth in the daily routines of living our lives out together, but we are committing to personal time apart to be alone with God daily. Please pray for us! I don’t want to forget how to throw the ball in.