The biggest game of the football year will be played tomorrow in Tampa Bay. Millions from around the world will tune as the Kansas City Chiefs clash with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers to determine the winner of the 2021 Lombardi Trophy. Even though COVID 19 has hampered the season, somehow the teams have found a way to surmount their challenges and slug their way into the final game.
This year’s Super Bowl also features a showdown between two of the most popular and most successful quarterbacks in the NFL. Tom Brady will make his tenth appearance in a Super Bowl and is also the oldest active player in the entire league at 43. Meanwhile, Patrick Mahomes is a youthful 25 and hoping to add another Super Bowl ring to the one he and his team earned last year. It is a classic matchup of age versus youth.
Both Brady and Mahomes are phenomenally gifted and athletic. Both have strong arms and sharp minds. And both have front lines that can protect them long enough to make good decisions and complete passes. It should be very entertaining to watch them battle for dominance on the Florida field.
Suspend reality for a moment to imagine Tom Brady inviting you or me to practice with him. He has an incredible arm and can easily throw the ball past us. Instead, he chooses to throw it to us. We throw it back and the drill continues back and forth.
The more we throw and catch, the more he challenges us. He may purposefully throw it a little high to make us jump or off to our right to make us reach. He may throw it low requiring us to dig and scrap. Each pass has a purpose and each placement is precise.
In addition, there will doubtless be some passes that we drop. Some we should easily catch will fall to the ground incomplete. Instead of becoming impatient, however, he continues to throw, enhancing our abilities. Each catch improves our skill until we tire and leave the pro to his game.
This little football fantasy can help us understand God a bit better. As our Heavenly Quarterback, He is fully capable of throwing His provision, wisdom, and salvation far over our heads and way beyond our reach. Yet, in mercy, He has chosen to throw them directly to us.
At times He makes us stretch and reach in order to develop our spiritual fitness and strength. Sometimes He purposefully challenges us to run our hardest to make the catch while other times He gently lobs it into our breadbasket.
Since we are imperfect at this game, sometimes we miss even the easy ones. Instead of getting angry and walking off the field, or worse yet, ordering us off the team, with great forgiveness and patience He bears with us as He constantly pushes us beyond our previous limits.
Sometimes we tire and want to sit out a bit even though our heavenly Trainer is seeking to develop our stamina and perseverance. His insight is much stronger than even the best NFL quarterback and He knows exactly what we can and cannot do. We may become frustrated or exhausted, but His Word assures us that He will never push us beyond what His Holy Spirit enables us to withstand.
Ultimately His interaction with us is not motivated by a desire to win the big game or even pity for our pathetic skills. Rather, it is God’s great love for each of His children that compels Him to stoop to our field of life and “play” with us, not so we will win a ring that will tarnish, but that we might enjoy an eternal crown that will never fade.
As we watch the professionals battle it out in Tampa tomorrow evening, let’s be mindful of our Heavenly Quarterback who patiently and consistently works with us to improve our life skills and let us endeavor to catch every pass He throws to us.
Go Chiefs, George