YOU GOTTA LOVE THE GAME!

Today I was thinking of my dear friend, the late Olin Hay. Olin pastored South Louisville Christian Church (Louisville, KY) for over 20 years. Occasionally he liked to watch football practice at the University of Louisville. On one occasion a skinny freshman quarterback was sacked by a huge lineman right in front of him. Olin said the kid went down so hard it took him a minute to get up. When he finally extracted himself from the turf he looked at Olin with mud in his facemask, smiled and said, “You gotta love the game!”

Olin loved to reveal the identity of that scrawny quarterback. It was Johnny Unitas! Records show that the 6'1" Unitas weighed only 145 pounds on his first day at UofL. But his love for football was weighty enough to win him the NFL's MVP award in 1959, 1964, and 1967. His record for touchdown passes thrown in consecutive games still stands at 47! (Could Brett Farve be hanging on to break that record too?) Johnny Unitas is considered one of the greatest NFL quarterbacks of all time. It was his love for the game that enabled him to take the punishment as a skinny QB and excel.

Sometimes it’s easy to feel like a 145-pound weakling in faith. You may be facing a huge obstacle or bearing a crushing load in life. Do you ever end up with a lot of mud in your facemask? You can get up. You can keep going. You can succeed and even thrive. How? “You gotta love the game!”

If you’re feeling a little beaten down, remember this word from Hebrews 12, “let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross…Consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart."