Hammer on Anvil '

Two Friday nights ago my family and I were leaving the high school football game. It was passed the point in the day when I function well around people....8pm.

As we walked through the parking lot I saw I had a shadow. Then I saw I had another...and another. As I mentioned before, it was late and my brain wasn't functioning so I wondered how that happened. Then I realized there were several light sources, all helping me to cast a shadow.

I've been thinking about that for these two weeks and thinking about shadows. Our stories are full of shadows. Peter Pan loses his shadow (or in the case of the show Once Upon a Time, sends it to do his bidding). In Doctor Who, the Vashta Nerada lurk in the shadows and you know they have targeted you when you have more than one shadow. Now that Halloween is right around the corner, shadows and dark places are held in high regard. People like to hide in the shadows to jump out and scare others.

The Bible contrasts God to a shadow. In James 1:17 we read, "Every good thing given and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no shadow." You see, shadows change. As the sun moves across the sky, shadows shrink and grow. They can distort. We can make shadow puppets on the wall by changing the way we cast a shadow.

God is not like that. He is the same as He has always been and He will not change. The same God who sent Jesus to take each of our places, still loves us. The same God who sent the Holy Spirit to guide us is still that same God.

He still looks after us. He still loves us. He still wants us to follow Him. Nothing has changed. That's a very reassuring thought in a world where nothing is constant. God is, and we can rely on Him.

The other thought I've been throwing around in my head is we are to be like God. So we should not be shadows. God has called us to live a life following after Him. This is true life, when we leave the darkness and come into the light.

My shadow isn't me. It can sometimes look like me, but it's not me. I need to make sure that I'm living the life God has called me to live, and that I'm not living a shadow of the life He desires. Real is always better than a shadow.

God has called us each to live an awesome life for Him. He has a plan for all of us and we can accomplish a lot. Why would we cast away the real, the awesome, or the light, for nothing but an imitation.

Live the life God has called you to live. It's awesome and you don't want to pass up the opportunity.

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. ;)