Praying to Win

He’s a skilled college football player and a committed believer. He said recently he trusted God to help him score points on the field. It reminded me of a church member years ago who was exulting in his team’s victory the day before. The losing team missed an end-of-the-game field goal, and my friend said, “And the hand of God appeared and pushed the football to the left a few inches!”

My friend was joking, but the aforementioned player was serious, I think.

So, the question raised is how effective is our praying at gametime?

Yogi Berra once observed a player kneeling in prayer beside the batter’s box, and another player making the sign of the cross on the field.

“Why don’t you guys leave God alone and let him watch the game?” he said.

Sometimes we hear earnest discussions about prayer in public schools, and some remind us that we’ve always had prayer in schools. I remember praying earnestly in Algebra II! And I prayed at test time as well. But I have to admit that often my high school prayers were based more on my lack of study than imploring God to help me remember what I’d studied.

I’m convinced prayers will continue in stadiums and classrooms.

But we also may be overlooking the fact that losing is part of life. No team wins all the time, and few students have perfect GPA averages. There are seasons of winning and seasons of losing, all a part of life.

Christians idolize and elevate the Apostle Paul, and he certainly was the greatest missionary in history. But Paul also had some notable failures. I often think of his time in Lystra when the townspeople mistook him and Barnabas for gods. Paul erupted in anger and blasted them. Their response was to stone him and leave him for dead. I’ve suggested this is one explanation for his “thorn in the flesh” with internal organ damage or bones that never healed properly. What if he’d responded with more finesse? We can only hypothesize.

Robert Schuller used to say, “Success is never certain, and failure is never final.”

We can’t rest on successes and stop striving, nor can we be demoralized when we fail.

It’s said that Thomas Edison tried more than 1,000 filaments for his incandescent light bulb before he found one that withstood the current.

“I’ve not failed, “he insisted. “I’ve discovered 999 filaments that won’t work!”

We pray at sporting events for players to be safe, but we cannot and should not insist our prayers score home runs or touchdowns.

God is concerned for the whole of our lives, but life is more than ballgames.

And we don’t always win. -30-

“Reflections” is a weekly faith column written by Michael J. Brooks, pastor of the Siluria Baptist Church, Alabaster, Alabama. The church’s website is siluriabaptist.com.