At great risk of sounding like an old fuddy-duddy, or slightly bitter youth pastor, allow me to vent a little here.

Today is one of the most celebrated days in America: Super Bowl Sunday.  I’m not a huge football fan.  I can watch a game and enjoy it, but I’m not into it enough to have even known which teams would be doing battle for the prestigious title of NFL’s #1 team.  However, as a youth pastor I am surrounded by throngs of teen-age boys (and some girls) whose knowledge of player’s statistics, history of teams and ability to retrieve information of minutiae related to the sport reels the mind.  They seem to know just about all there is to know related to the game, teams and players.

In addition to this, I will be hearing in my classes exact recreations, word for word and from memory, of their favorite super bowl commercials.  They will have viewed them all of maybe four to five times, yet they will have the entire thing committed to heart.  It’s actually pretty amazing.

Now, I am not a kill joy.  I totally believe in the occasional pursuit of frivolity, it can be a great stress reliever both emotionally and physically.  However, I am constantly dumfounded on the time and energy that many people put into things that are totally temporal while casting a fraction of their attention to things eternal.  How I wish I could see some of the same enthusiasm for memorizing a quarterback’s pass completion stats applied to committing to heart God’s promises of completing His work in us.  If kids would research stories of God’s heroes as much as they do heroes of the gridiron.

Believe me, I know what I sound like.  But I can’t help feeling that Satan laughs all the way to the bank seeing us more concerned about the battle on the field that the battle for our souls.  So thanks for letting me go on a bit about this.  It’s really more for my benefit because it reminds me of all the things I let get my attention instead of focusing on the one thing that really matters: my relationship and connection to God…who I’m sure is probably a football fan as well.