This Is Only A Test

So I saw something I thought was pretty interesting the other day.

A football player, in this past weekend's game, dropped a pass that would have given his team a victory over one of the premier teams in the league. Following his mishap he had this to post on his twitter account:

"I praise you 24/7 and this is how you do me!! You expect me to learn from this?? How?? I will never forget this ever!! Thanks Tho..."

Now we've all heard the typical sports cliche after some athlete scores the winning touchdown, goal, or point, "I just want to give thanks to God for helping me score and for us winning". I for one have always thought that was bologna. God doesn't care about sports.....Does he?

Now upon first hearing of and reading his post I was really shocked. In fact I've had to read it several times just to wrap my mind around it. Now not knowing this guy personally and not knowing who he praises 24/7, I can only assume he's speaking of God. It certainly made me think.

Now at first I was appalled. I thought, is this guy for real? What blasphemy. Is he seriously blaming God for him missing the ball? Then I thought could it be that God is some how the reason for him dropping the game winning pass? The more I thought about his tweet, the more I thought yeah, I believe God could be the reason why he dropped that pass.

We tend to think or remember God on our terms and just like this guy, we think that He owes us something. We give thanks to God for the many blessings we have or when things go right in our life, but do we ever look to him when things go bad? When we screw-up do we ever think it's because of God that this happened? 

Now before you get to excited, let me explain.

A little back story on the football player. The game before this one he had a career best game. He caught 3 touchdown passes led his team in yards, and was unstoppable on the field. However, like so many professional athletes he put on "a show" in front of the camera and ended up getting fined by the league for his antics and ridiculed by his peers.

Which leads me to my thoughts on this. When we are in school we are tested to see how well we know the material. Did we listen during lecture, did we study? We take these test to see how well prepared we are. I believe God acts in this very same way.

See God tests us (not temps, tests). He tests us to see how well prepared we are. He tests us to see where are hearts are. He tests us to see how loyal we are. Again we tend to think on our time and terms, but I don't believe God works that way. I believe God works on his time, his conditions.

Now again, I don't know this football player, and I really don't know where his head was when he posted this tweet, I can only try to take if for what it says, and try not to read anything into it, but maybe he is being tested to be humbled? I believe God tests us each and every day to humble us. To let us know just who we are, and who He is.

So anyway, not that my blog is a religious forum or anything, but I found it very interesting how much press this tweet was getting. It made me think, maybe the next time I screw-up I should take note and remember this is a test, and who knows, maybe God does care about sports.

J-Tony