Perspectives: The praying field

By Brad Locke

How much sincerity, really, is behind athletes' prayers and praises that are uttered in the course of competition? While God may very well appreciate the recognition, I think he's more interested in the relationship those doing the uttering have with their maker. I was covering a high school football scrimmage recently, and before the game started, one team clustered together and recited the Lord's Prayer. Of course, the only way you could tell it was the Lord's Prayer was by its recognizable rhythm. The words themselves were mostly unintelligible, as though the players and coaches were trying to expel the prayer from their systems before it made them ill.

As soon as the huddle broke, one of the coaches exhorted the players very, um, colorfully. That little moment reminded me of a scene in the movie Necessary Roughness, when the coach delivered a profanity-laced tirade at halftime, then at the end of it said, "Let us pray." I know that was done for comical effect, and it was indeed funny because it imitated real life.

I think we should incorporate God into everything we do, and I'm all for prayer in a public setting. Most sporting events I cover are prefaced with a prayer by a student or local pastor, and teams will usually gather at midfield afterwards to give God a few seconds of their time. That's good. I just don't like it when I see people going through the motions. Praying before or after the game is fine -- if you mean it. Otherwise, it's mockery, like taking communion with an unrepentant heart. It's not pleasing to God. I've got personal experience with this. Praying has never come easy to me, and many a time I've done it just so I could check it off my list and feel good about myself.

Prayers can be simple, but prayer is not a simple thing. It is something that should come from the deepest place in our hearts, the place from whence gratitude, confession, and honesty flow. To pray to God is to examine one's heart and where one is in his relationship with God. Rote prayers, spoken from the mouth and not the heart, hit the ceiling. The Lord's Prayer is especially susceptible to ritualistic treatment, which saps it of its beautiful truth. It is a guide on how to pray, but it is more than that; it is a prayer worth memorizing and using, but not to be said vainly.

God himself gets treated as such by our athletes. Last season, during a playoff football game, a quarterback made a great touchdown run that won the game. When I talked to him, he said that when he lost his footing around midfield, "that was it for me, the rest of it was God." Now, I firmly believe that God can carry us through trials and bring us victories of which we are not capable on our own, but this seemed a stretch. It's nothing new, as we often hear pro athletes thanking God for allowing them to play a great game or grant them victory. Some shaky theology going on there.

As I've heard said, God isn't a great vending machine in the sky. He deserves better than that. And if we're going to include God in our sports, we'd better make sur

Brad Locke (checkswinger@gmail.com) is a sports journalist in Tupelo, Mississippi.