About the Sport principle
I am writing this in the immediate aftermath of England’s Euro 2020 final loss to Italy on penalties! There is still a lot of excitement in the country right now, with lots being said and written about the last month. By the time you read this, nobody will care! In terms of the England football team, the focus will have shifted to World Cup 2022 qualification. And it would have been just the same, had England won. In fact, the England team would have had a target on their backs as ‘European champions’ which would give the media every opportunity to chastise them for anything less than a perfect performance every time. Football is temporary and transitory. Who won the Premier League last season? Who cares! What matters is who will win it this year! And that won’t matter for long, before our attention switches to 2023! It always strikes me that for something that demands so much of the energy and attention of so many men, the impact of the end result is hardly worth the effort. Football keeps moving on (and refusing to come home!) And for its fans with their insatiable appetites for success, it’s really hard to keep up! If we’re not careful, our lives can be a bit like this too.
Application to Life
It’s often said that there are two great tragedies in life: one is not to get the desire of your heart, the other is to get it. How often do we get what we’ve put so much emphasis on the promotion, or the success on the sports field, or the recognition we were seeking from other people, or the perfect relationship, be that romantic, or a friendship, only to find it’s just not enough for our restless hearts? And we’re off looking for the next thing to satisfy us. And then the next thing. And the next. Centuries ago, it was St. Augustine of Hippo who said: “Our hearts are restless until they can find their rest in you.” In Ecclesiastes, chapter 1, we are reminded that in the same way that we don’t remember our descendants, we won’t be remembered either by future generations. Do you even know the names of your great grandparents? What about your great, great grandparents, or the generation before them? We have no reason to expect anything other than the fact that in the space of a few short generations the memory of our names too will be wiped from the face of the earth. Here is the truth of it: Outside of God and His purpose for your life, life is utterly meaningless, a chasing after the wind. As great as football is, and as much as we can enjoy our team, or country, being successful, may we allow the cyclical, repetitive nature of the domestic season, or the World Cup, or Euros, or the Olympic cycle, and its ultimate emptiness, serve as a reminder that life is just like this, apart from God and His will for our lives.
“What has been will be again,
Ecclesiastes 1:9
what has been done will be done again;
there is nothing new under the sun.”
Image Credit: travis jones
