The Heart of Sports
Chasing the Fleeting

By Brad Locke

(AgapePress) - I'm watching the Southern Cal-Texas championship game as I type this (yes, I can multi-task!). For a month-and-a-half, the anticipation of this event grew and grew until even my daughters knew what was going on.

The coverage was well-deserved, I suppose, as these were unquestionably the best two teams in college football. Nevertheless, the overwhelming amount of commentary, analysis and speculation spoke volumes about this country's obsession with grandness. We seem to live for those big moments, never content to bask too long in the euphoria of one, instead scrambling to find another.

Little of what occurs on the playing fields delivers on its hype. We have a habit of building something up well beyond its real significance. This is no mere psychological phenomenon; it is a symptom of spiritual desperateness.

Our quotidian existence demands something extraordinary, so we seek to escape normalcy by participating, however voyeuristically, in events of supposedly great consequence. We invest our happiness in such happenings, be they football games, big promotions, or marriage ceremonies.

Christians can be just as guilty of this as anyone.

It is easy to get so excited about an evangelical crusade or a Switchfoot concert that we lose sight of these events' sole purpose -- worshipping God. Worship is basically what it all boils down to when our hearts latch onto something. We all worship something. Some of us worship football, others our spouses, others God. Obviously, only One is worth such devotion.

Sure, worship of God doesn't sound exciting sometimes. But when I throw my full being into the act, I never fail to feel His wonderful presence surrounding me.

The main difference between worshipping worldly things and worshipping God is that the former endeavor is self-indulgent, the latter self-denying.

Worshipping God should take the focus away from our own selfish wants and place it squarely on Him and the beautiful grace He's given us.

Besides, what is our reward for pursuing worldly gain besides momentary bliss (at best) and fading memories, neither of which do us any eternal good? Eschewing such temporal pleasures may make our lives a little more mundane, but the heavenly rewards will far exceed what we can procure here on Earth.

Well, the Rose Bowl is over. It was an exciting contest with a thrilling end. Congratulations to Texas.

By the way, the Super Bowl is right around the corner.

Brad Locke (fredbob_sports@yahoo.com) is a sports journalist in Tupelo, Mississippi.