Football and Faithfulness

I was watching my son play football last summer when it hit me.

Faithfulness.

I love to watch my kids do things. Any parent does. I was cheering, the video was rolling, hoping he would score the TD. He went out long, the entire length of a short field, the ball came spiraling over his head. It was overthrown. The crowd (of 12 very biased parents) were on their feet. You could hear a slight gasp. He leaped further than I thought he could leap. The ball grazed his fingers in the end zone, but he was unable to hang on. He fell to the ground.

It was great.

The truth is, he could have come up 4-feet short, and I still would have been thrilled. He could have grabbed the ball and ran into the wrong end zone, and I still would have been proud of him.

And then it hit me.

The crowd of people were titillated by the big play, but what really won the game for us was the boys who weren’t getting cheers. They were quietly doing battle on the line of scrimmage. They were just playing their roles, faithfully. They set up, they pushed back the other players, they guarded their quarterback, they fell down sometimes. And then they did it all over again. They would pick up a yard or two, but not allow our team to go backwards.

The Bible calls this faithfulness.

Let me ask you a question, would you rather catch one winning “touchdown” in life, or everyday do what God has called you to do? No accolades. No cheerleaders. No great video footage. For me the choice is simple. God calls us to be faithful.

But the fruit of the Spirit is…faithfulness (Gal. 4:22)