Selfless Service in Soccer & Life

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Selfless Service in Soccer & Life

Posted on March 7, 2013 by sammweber

 

“Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God’s grace in its various forms.  If anyone speaks, they should do so as one who speaks the very words of God. If anyone serves, they should do so with the strength God provides, so that in all things God may be praised through Jesus Christ. To him be the glory and the power for ever and ever. Amen.” – 1 Peter 4:10-11

Throughout my time at Grove City, God has been teaching me how to use my talents to bring Him glory.  In case you are unaware, this is a very hard lesson to learn because it means that it’s not about us and it’s all about God.  The first step in this lesson is to admit that often times our actions are motivated by our selfish desire to be recognized by other people.  Once we are able to recognize how self-centered we are, that’s when the real growth can start to take place.

Bringing glory to God takes commitment and a conscious effort.  If we are not consciously thinking about how we can honor God in our actions, then our natural instincts take over and we tend to do things in order to have others praise us.
While this lesson applies to every area of life, I have found it especially convicting when it comes to playing soccer.  In general, sports provide many opportunities for our selfish nature to take over.  It’s so easy to let others praise you when you score a goal, or run that extra sprint, or organize the next team building activity.   But the truth is that playing soccer is a gift from God and that it provides an incredible opportunity to share the Christian faith with a lot of people.

Over the past two and a half years, I have found that playing on a Christian team is one of the most challenging experiences I have ever had.  On a team like ours, we are held to a higher standard and are expected to play in a way that brings glory to God and shows others Christ through our actions on and off the field.  Sometimes this is really hard to do, sometimes I completely fail at it too, but that’s why I have teammates around me.  They pick me up when I fall off the wagon and resort back to my selfish ways, and I do the same for them.   That’s what makes playing soccer at Grove City so special.   Having this commitment to giving God the glory has also been the one thing that has truly united our team. We all come from different backgrounds, we all have different majors, friends, and life goals, but our commitment to our faith truly brings us together.

This off season has been especially challenging for me.  As my junior class moves into our senior year on the team, we are expected to start taking on more leadership responsibilities.  I have found this to be really tough because I feel like it is so easy to lead in a way that brings praise back to myself.   I don’t want to be like this, but sometimes it just happens.

So, with all of that in mind, I am publicly admitting that I am selfish human being and that I am re-focusing by committing to making a conscious effort to use my gifts to bring glory to God.

If anyone serves, they should do so with the strength God provides, so that in all things God may be praised through Jesus Christ.
                                     

Who I am Physically and Spiritually Traces Back to My Father!

About God, the Father

Probably my advancing age and more time to ponder life led me to thinking about my origins this morning, of which I know very little.  Yes, I know who my parents were, one was my “mom” b/c I lived with her and her mother, my granny, and my grandfather, granddad.  I didn’t actually have a dad; I had a father.  What happened and when, I’ve never known, except  one answer from his sister, “All I know is that when he came back from the War, he said he wasn’t in love with her.”  I want to dig back into anything I can find now and figure out when the divorce came about – could it have even been before I was born?  Don’t know for certain, but I think they were together for at least a while when I was a baby. But I have no memory of my father ever living with us.   I did adore his side of the family which included many aunts, uncles, and cousins, but it was infrequent that I got to see them.

My mother worked and granny and granddad were really more my mom and dad, except that they’d deny that and never would completely step into that role.   So my *mom* was distracted and my grandparents were fairly “hands-off.”  That worked well  for me a lot of time, or so I thought.

Now, with advancing age and with only distant relatives on my father’s side that I failed to keep up with, I wish I knew more about that early history, more as to why my mother wasn’t really mothering and why my father didn’t play a larger role in my life.

Here’s why I’m writing this – b/c God entered into my train of thoughts this morning!

I was listening to K-Love radio and something in a song they were playing opened me up to this, I think, word from God – that my genetics and origins were in Him.   The train of thought was basically that the gene pool began with Adam and Eve and, yes,  there was a physiological transfer of genes and such via my mother and father back to the first pair of human beings.   BUT GOD was the actual Creator of those human traits and genetics and He is My Father, not just spiritually and by faith,  but by actual genetics b/c He created the first genes.  Exactly why that should lift my spirit this morning, I’m not certain, but it made me quite joyous.

This little journal entry may sound strange, but these were thoughts I did not generate myself but were given to me and they made me so happy b/c the good news is that I do have a Father who really wanted me!  And everything about me – all my traits physical and spiritual I have inherited from, by and through Him.   ALL the things about me trace back to when He created Adam and Eve, my great, great, great…..grandmother and grandfather.  Wow!

March 7, 2013