OK, if you're a big football fan, your thinking, what's the big deal. I'll admit I spend at least an hour today checking on who signed with the University of Georgia (we got two 5 star players and a really good class, overall).
But I also have to admit, I get a sneaking feeling that there's something not quite right with this whole picture. What worries me is that we are building a culture in which these kids are valued only for what they can do on the football field. They are graded and valued on every single aspect of their physical ability. It all comes down to the fact that your worth only based on what you can do.
You are only as good as what you do.
If I had the chance to speak to these kids, I think I might tell them that I am sorry. I'm sorry because I know that this ability based sense of value is so fleeting and superficial. I'm sorry because someday they won't be able to do what they can do. Some of them won't even "live up to their potential" - they won't be able to cut it on the college football field. Do they then cease to be valuable?
At the end of the day, I think this whole Signing Day drama makes me think of my own sense of worth. If I'm honest, I often base my own sense of worth on what I can accomplish. And when the accomplishment is less than the hope or the expectation, how do you not associate that with your own sense of worth?
Maybe most important of all is the fact that this performance based sense of value is starkly at odds with what the Bible says. How's this for a contrast: before we ever did anything that would even potentially qualify us as deserving of love, God chose us. God loved us when we were completely unlovable. Our value comes from the fact that God made us valuable. And that's the end of the story.
Dear football recruit. If you never play another down of football, you are precious in the eyes of God.
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