Sports

2018-01-27

I hate sports. Growing up, I was involved in some sports that were not the “favored” sports of American football, ice hockey, baseball, and basketball, and that makes you a second-class citizen. Children, teenagers, and some college students make playing sports their lives. Fine, they play a lot of sports. What I do not understand is a bunch of grown men that religiously (and I say this not as a metaphor) watch sports on the television and would rather talk about that garbage than anything of any value.

I hate sports.

Years ago, I was looking to go into foreign missions, and when meeting one of the former missionaries that was a teacher at the training center, one of the first things he asked me was if I liked such-and-such sport and team. I thought I would escape that worthless garbage there. Nope.

I really hate sports.

They talk about it at church and the workplace; you cannot escape it. Sports are everywhere. You are an outsider if you do not like sports.

A couple of years ago, a foolish “fan” decided that he hated his university’s rival so much, he poisoned these old trees on the rival’s campus.

There have been riots in Philadelphia if the sporting matches did not go their way.

The professionals get paid MILLIONS to play sports. Yes, that is foolish, but the reason it is that way is because Americans buy all the sporting tickets, paraphernalia, video games, and such so they can bow down to the four chief gods in the American pantheon: American football, ice hockey, baseball, and basketball.

Okay, fine, the non-Christian world bows the knee to the athletic Baals of this world.

What on earth are the Christians doing? Why waste time on watching hours of sports when you could do just about anything else? Why would Christians rather talk about foolish childhood games over Bible truths, prayer, or anything meaningful at all?

If you want to be involved in sports, at least play the sport for goodness sake instead of watching the garbage on television, wasting your time away.

I hate sports because they rob Christians of doing something of value. “When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.” (1 Corinthians 13:11)

I do not mean to be unkind. Most everybody I know loves sports, and I care about them all. It just blows my mind that people put that much energy into something that does not give them anything tangible in return.

If you are a Christian who bows to the four American Baals, please reconsider what you do with your time. Or maybe somehow you can use your sport knowledge or enthusiasm to build relationships with those around you to give them the Gospel. Whatever you do with this knowledge, I figured I would tell it like it is on this subject, since this is not one of the sins I struggle with.

Always think about what you do, and why you do it.