Hammer on Anvil '

This post is not about a guy that the media has caused many people to grow tired of hearing about (Tim Tebow), but the idea for this post did originate with him. Ever since the media started hyping his devotion to Jesus Christ, I’ve seen stuff all over Facebook and elsewhere on the net that can be boiled down to, “Why should God care about football?” And it’s true (to an extent). There are so many pressing matters in the world that the outcome of a football game seems pretty trivial.

But then I started thinking about that more in depth. If the outcome of a football game is too trivial for prayer, then at what point is something important enough to pray about?

If my car has been breaking down, should I pray for it to work? What if it’s my xbox that is broken? Or what if my health takes a turn for the worst? Certainly that is worthy of prayer, right? And, you know what, the political candidates that I support need to win the upcoming election. Should I pray for that? The outcome of a football game doesn’t affect much, but whoever wins the election will be leading our country, so that means it’s worthy of prayer, right? And c’mon, my xbox is important.

The more I thought about this, the more I realized that the answer is complicated. On the one hand, God definitely wants us to come to Him for all of our concerns, no matter how trivial. We see at least a couple of examples in the New Testament when Jesus shows us that God wants us to pray about our concerns: Matthew 6:11 (“Give us today our daily bread.”) and part of Matthew 26:39 when Jesus knows he is going to be crucified (“My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me.”).

But on the other hand, the Bible is rich with the sentiments of Colossians 3:2, “Set your minds on things above, not on Earthly things.” I frequently say that we all need to have an eternal perspective. There are loads of things that are here today and gone tomorrow, but very little that will last into eternity. We should be investing in those things that will last, and our prayers should reflect our devotion to that investment. And in both of those examples in Matthew, Jesus goes on to demonstrate that we should ask for God’s Will above all else.

In the end, I think that both perspectives are true. God wants us to come to him with all of our concerns, and as we mature as Christians, he wants our prayers to reflect our growing investment in eternity.

With that in mind, please join me in this short prayer. Dear God, please let the 49ers win the Super Bowl. Amen. ;)