Latest / Crosswalk Talk: Celebrity Christian Interviews / Benjamin Watson on Why Faith Is More Visible Than Ever in Sports -- and Why That Matters
Transcript
- 0:02Speaker 1: Life Audio.
- 0:04Speaker 2: Hey Ben, thanks for joining me.
- 0:06Speaker 1: Hey Man, great to be with you.
- 0:07Speaker 2: Benjamin Watson, former NFL player and editor in.
- 0:09Speaker 3: Chief of Sports Spectrum, which my son, by the way,
- 0:12Speaker 3: reads regularly. He's here to talk with us about faith
- 0:16Speaker 3: in sports, and with the Super Bowl just around the corner,
- 0:18Speaker 3: we're else going to talk about Sports Spectrums partnership this
- 0:20Speaker 3: year with Compassionate International. Been able to talk about faith
- 0:25Speaker 3: in sports first because as we were talking before we
- 0:27Speaker 3: started this, I'm a believer and I'm a sports fan.
- 0:30Speaker 3: Ten to fifteen years ago, we had Tim Tebow and
- 0:33Speaker 3: he was kind of the most prominent guy. He got
- 0:35Speaker 3: a lot of attention for kneeling in the end zone.
- 0:37Speaker 3: But it seems like today we have a thousand Tim
- 0:40Speaker 3: Tepos out there and it's marvelous to watch as a.
- 0:43Speaker 2: Believer and as a fan of sports.
- 0:45Speaker 3: What has happened in the past few years to have
- 0:50Speaker 3: so many prominent athletes and even guys behind the scenes
- 0:53Speaker 3: and like second and third teen guys talking about Jesus
- 0:57Speaker 3: prominently on television and.
- 0:59Speaker 2: Just their social media accounts. What's happening?
- 1:02Speaker 4: Yeah, I think that those last two words you said,
- 1:05Speaker 4: the social media part, I think is a huge part
- 1:07Speaker 4: of it. You know, I don't think that this is new,
- 1:10Speaker 4: but I do think that the platform that athletes are
- 1:12Speaker 4: using social media, a lot of new technologies, is just
- 1:16Speaker 4: raising our awareness of the fact that a lot of
- 1:18Speaker 4: athletes have faith. A lot of athletes care about, you know,
- 1:21Speaker 4: their faith that they are, they are Christians, they read
- 1:24Speaker 4: their Bibles, they do other things that everybody else does.
- 1:26Speaker 4: But there's more of an acceptance now, I think of
- 1:29Speaker 4: culturally of athletes sharing these things. We did some research
- 1:33Speaker 4: and Sports Spectrum and we found that a large percentage
- 1:36Speaker 4: of sports fans are okay with athletes expressing their interests
- 1:40Speaker 4: outside of the game. And I do think specifically, even
- 1:43Speaker 4: when I think about my career, the timeframe that I
- 1:46Speaker 4: was in college as well as the NFL, there was
- 1:49Speaker 4: an acceptance of that to some respect, but I think
- 1:51Speaker 4: that it's escalated over the last several years to where,
- 1:54Speaker 4: you know, guys are championing social causes, they're championing philanthropy,
- 1:59Speaker 4: all these social things, and faith is also part of that.
- 2:01Speaker 1: So I think that's one thing. But I think also that.
- 2:03Speaker 4: It's important to recognize how many athletes, especially in football,
- 2:09Speaker 4: that were believers. I mean, I remember growing up, you know,
- 2:11Speaker 4: being in high school in the nineties and getting my
- 2:13Speaker 4: little Fellowship of Christian Athletes Bible and being able to
- 2:16Speaker 4: read about guys like a niece Williams, or guys like
- 2:20Speaker 4: you know, the late Reggie White or I'm Kurt Warner
- 2:23Speaker 4: and all these other guys from yesteryear that played that
- 2:27Speaker 4: had testimonies, but we just didn't have all the avenues
- 2:30Speaker 4: to share them that we have now. So it's encouraging
- 2:34Speaker 4: and I think that it's It's also a reminder that
- 2:37Speaker 4: when one person or two people or three people step
- 2:41Speaker 4: out and say certain things, it gives other people confidence
- 2:45Speaker 4: to say it as well, and it breaks down that
- 2:48Speaker 4: the fear factor, so to speak, of speaking about something
- 2:52Speaker 4: that's not the norm to hear in a postgame interview.
- 2:55Speaker 3: Yeah, I had a poster Reggie Bite on my wall
- 2:57Speaker 3: when I was growing up. I'm probably wasn't dating myself
- 2:59Speaker 3: by saying that. I'm also curious that does the stress
- 3:02Speaker 3: of sports kind of lead to this? Are are athletes
- 3:05Speaker 3: looking for something outside of themselves to kind of help
- 3:08Speaker 3: bomb their nerves on the quarter on the field.
- 3:11Speaker 4: I think people are looking for something outside themselves in
- 3:13Speaker 4: pressure situations, you know, there's an old old saying about
- 3:17Speaker 4: there's no atheists and foughtsholes. I've never been in the military.
- 3:20Speaker 4: I have great respect for the guys that do and
- 3:22Speaker 4: the women that do fight for our country. But the
- 3:24Speaker 4: idea there is the fact that when we are in
- 3:27Speaker 4: situations that are beyond ourselves and beyond our personal capabilities,
- 3:32Speaker 4: it is where God specifically has us to hear from
- 3:35Speaker 4: him the most. And in my experience as an athlete,
- 3:38Speaker 4: I hated training camp. I hated training camp like I hated.
- 3:42Speaker 1: Being away from the family.
- 3:44Speaker 4: I hated like a body, feeling like I got hit
- 3:46Speaker 4: by a car every single day, like I didn't enjoy
- 3:50Speaker 4: a lot of.
- 3:50Speaker 1: Those parts of training camp. But one thing that I
- 3:52Speaker 1: did look forward to.
- 3:53Speaker 4: In a weird way in training camp was the fact
- 3:56Speaker 4: that I know I knew that I was going to
- 3:58Speaker 4: be pushed beyond my physical and that I was going
- 4:01Speaker 4: to have a dedicated space and a desire to get
- 4:04Speaker 4: in the word because I needed to center myself. I
- 4:07Speaker 4: needed to understand that this isn't all there was, and
- 4:11Speaker 4: I needed God to help me like I need it.
- 4:14Speaker 4: I needed that during that time because I was stretched
- 4:17Speaker 4: to my physical limit, and so I do think that
- 4:20Speaker 4: there is something too when we get in situations, whether
- 4:23Speaker 4: it's in our lives as parents, our lives as spouses,
- 4:27Speaker 4: our occupational lives in this case sports, when we get
- 4:30Speaker 4: in those types of situations where we are beyond our
- 4:33Speaker 4: physical capabilities, I think it does push us. Now, the
- 4:37Speaker 4: key is are we going to lean into that and
- 4:40Speaker 4: embrace it or is it going to be God is
- 4:43Speaker 4: my good luckure?
- 4:45Speaker 1: And so those are the two extremes.
- 4:48Speaker 4: And the encouraging thing that I've seen from a lot
- 4:51Speaker 4: of these young athletes is that there seems to be
- 4:53Speaker 4: a genuine faith. Sure for some of them, Like many people,
- 4:56Speaker 4: it is a good looktron. You know, it's just something
- 4:58Speaker 4: that we're going to say, raised to say this or whatever.
- 5:01Speaker 4: But I do think that for a lot of athletes
- 5:04Speaker 4: and people, you know, they are on their road of
- 5:07Speaker 4: maturation as believers, but it is just amplified when they're
- 5:11Speaker 4: in those types of situations.
- 5:13Speaker 2: And we've had worship services led by students.
- 5:15Speaker 3: I think the as you I were discussing for this,
- 5:18Speaker 3: I'm a Tennessee fan, but you're a Georgia fan. But
- 5:20Speaker 3: watching what was going on at Ohio State the last
- 5:23Speaker 3: few years has been so encouraging, and that spread to
- 5:26Speaker 3: other campuses.
- 5:26Speaker 2: Pitt had had it going on. I know Alabama had
- 5:29Speaker 2: it going on, and there are other.
- 5:30Speaker 3: Campuses as well. So it seems to be there's a
- 5:33Speaker 3: like a quiet revival going on behind the scenes on
- 5:36Speaker 3: these campuses. Do you agree with that? And you know
- 5:39Speaker 3: among athletes as well.
- 5:41Speaker 1: Yeah, you know.
- 5:41Speaker 4: I had an opportunity to talk to some of the
- 5:43Speaker 4: guys from the Ohio State team.
- 5:45Speaker 1: I was talking to c. J. Stroud about it.
- 5:47Speaker 4: He was a little bit before that, and one thing
- 5:50Speaker 4: he said to me. We were at a conference together
- 5:52Speaker 4: and I was talking to him about it. He said,
- 5:54Speaker 4: you know what, that wasn't me. So that wasn't my
- 5:56Speaker 4: That wasn't me. That was the next generation.
- 5:57Speaker 1: I can't claim that.
- 5:59Speaker 4: We may have some of the foundation for that, but
- 6:01Speaker 4: he was like those guys to get further. And it
- 6:03Speaker 4: reminds of being scripture when it talks about, you know,
- 6:06Speaker 4: passing these things on to reliable men who could then
- 6:08Speaker 4: pass them on to somebody else. And so there's this
- 6:11Speaker 4: generational impact on these college campuses of athletes taking a
- 6:17Speaker 4: stand and then the younger one seeing what it means
- 6:19Speaker 4: and them doing the same thing and then I think
- 6:21Speaker 4: it all still circles back to our news cycles and
- 6:24Speaker 4: the way that we can consume so much information. You know,
- 6:28Speaker 4: we can see what's happening on Ohio State's campus in
- 6:32Speaker 4: the middle of spring, you know, on a Tuesday, in
- 6:36Speaker 4: ways that before, if the national media was not there
- 6:39Speaker 4: watching it, we would have no idea that this was
- 6:41Speaker 4: even happening. And so while I do I do when
- 6:44Speaker 4: I hotter that and say that there has been an increase,
- 6:47Speaker 4: there's evidence of that, it's also the fact that we
- 6:49Speaker 4: can see it, and I think that that's the beauty
- 6:52Speaker 4: of this moment. The beauty of the moment is that
- 6:54Speaker 4: we're living in an age that is unlike any before us,
- 6:58Speaker 4: and our kids will live in one that's unlike we
- 7:00Speaker 4: are in now. But we're living in an age where
- 7:03Speaker 4: we can exchange so much information. We can make Christ's
- 7:07Speaker 4: name known in so many different ways that we have
- 7:10Speaker 4: to grasp a hold of it.
- 7:12Speaker 1: And that's a lot. When we talk about sports spectrum,
- 7:15Speaker 1: that's the beauty of where we.
- 7:16Speaker 4: Sit kind of to our fans of sport to be
- 7:19Speaker 4: followers of Jesus, is that there are so many different
- 7:22Speaker 4: avenues to do that, whether it's social media, where there's
- 7:24Speaker 4: law form movies, whether it's interviews with some of these athletes,
- 7:29Speaker 4: whether it's you know, devotions that are written and printed
- 7:32Speaker 4: of an athlete. Like, there's just so many opportunities, and
- 7:35Speaker 4: it's an encouragement to hit anybody who's a believer to
- 7:38Speaker 4: really lead into that and grasp it.
- 7:40Speaker 3: Before we just switch to sports spectrum and Compassion International,
- 7:43Speaker 3: I did want to ask you about just being an
- 7:44Speaker 3: athlete and being a Christian, because I'm assuming that one
- 7:48Speaker 3: reason maybe athletes were hesitant to speak out about their
- 7:51Speaker 3: faith for a long time was because of how it
- 7:53Speaker 3: might have been viewed as kind of making it too passive.
- 7:56Speaker 3: I remember the old story of Reggie White, he was
- 7:58Speaker 3: second quarterback and then helped them up saying Jesus loves you.
- 8:02Speaker 2: But but that's far more prominent now.
- 8:04Speaker 3: So I guess as a Christian in your in your
- 8:06Speaker 3: NFL career, how did your faith shape how you competed
- 8:09Speaker 3: on the field or did it at all? I mean,
- 8:11Speaker 3: you're gonna, of course, you're a tight end. You're being tackled,
- 8:14Speaker 3: but you know you're going you're gonna want to be
- 8:17Speaker 3: as competitive as anybody else. You're gonna hit gonna want
- 8:19Speaker 3: to hit as hard as anybody else.
- 8:22Speaker 1: What I ought to say about.
- 8:23Speaker 4: That, Well, well, Brian Dawkins, the linebacker actually the safety
- 8:27Speaker 4: play for the Eagles, play for Denver, was known as
- 8:31Speaker 4: one of the hardest hitters. And this guy one time
- 8:33Speaker 4: tackled me and you know, vicious, and he gets up
- 8:37Speaker 4: and he tells me Jesus loves me. He's like, God
- 8:39Speaker 4: bless you. And he's like running back to the huddle,
- 8:42Speaker 4: like quoting script. And then we come out again and
- 8:44Speaker 4: I go to block him and he gives me a
- 8:46Speaker 4: forearm right to the chest. And you know, when you
- 8:48Speaker 4: hit Bribe, you had to be ready, you know. So
- 8:50Speaker 4: I hit him, hit him back. But you know, that's
- 8:52Speaker 4: how he was. He would be almost in perpetual worship
- 8:56Speaker 4: during football games, which is the weirdest thing ever. But
- 8:59Speaker 4: there's the misk exception that you can't be aggressive and
- 9:02Speaker 4: do your job and be a Christian like that. There's
- 9:06Speaker 4: I don't know where we get that from. You know,
- 9:09Speaker 4: we don't get it from watching and reading about Christ,
- 9:11Speaker 4: Like we don't get any passivity from him. We get
- 9:14Speaker 4: passivity from Adam. We get him from that, but we
- 9:17Speaker 4: don't get it from the second atom in Christ. We
- 9:19Speaker 4: don't get passivity, we get courage, we get responsibility, we
- 9:22Speaker 4: get you know, being a dynamic leader. We get all
- 9:25Speaker 4: those teams looking at at Christ. And so for me
- 9:30Speaker 4: as an athlete, it really it really helped me with perspective.
- 9:35Speaker 4: I would say I would say that the biggest part
- 9:38Speaker 4: of it was having a perspective that this isn't all
- 9:43Speaker 4: there is and whether you are on the highest of highs,
- 9:46Speaker 4: which the two teams that are playing in the Super Bowl,
- 9:48Speaker 4: one of them is going to be an incredible high
- 9:50Speaker 4: in two weeks. They're going to be on top of
- 9:53Speaker 4: the world. The other one is going to feel like
- 9:55Speaker 4: they've they've wasted almost.
- 9:58Speaker 1: An entire season.
- 9:59Speaker 4: They're gonna it's not true, but they're going to be
- 10:02Speaker 4: in a valley after losing. The biggest gain the perspective
- 10:06Speaker 4: that believers have is that this is not all there is.
- 10:10Speaker 4: Although this is vitally important because this is the word
- 10:12Speaker 4: God has given us to do, that this is not
- 10:15Speaker 4: all there is and that God can still use them
- 10:19Speaker 4: whether they want or where they lost.
- 10:21Speaker 1: And as an athlete.
- 10:22Speaker 4: Who has struggled with that before, that is kind of
- 10:25Speaker 4: the anchor I always say the second part about being
- 10:27Speaker 4: a believer is you grasp opportunities. And what I've seen,
- 10:32Speaker 4: you know, you asked a question about you know, players
- 10:34Speaker 4: maybe not speaking out as much in the past. What
- 10:37Speaker 4: I am seeing though, is athletes grasping the opportunity to
- 10:42Speaker 4: speak on truth and to speak on Christ when they
- 10:46Speaker 4: have the microphone, because you don't know where you're gonna.
- 10:48Speaker 1: Have it again. Yeah, yeah, Jesus, you know listening.
- 10:52Speaker 4: You don't know who's listening, whether it be a believer,
- 10:55Speaker 4: non believer, somebody ten years from now that watches it.
- 10:58Speaker 4: And so it reminds you that we are to be
- 11:01Speaker 4: wise with every opportunity that we get, especially in sport,
- 11:05Speaker 4: where so much is admissible. Can you imagine someone that
- 11:11Speaker 4: works for a corporate five hundred company just talking about
- 11:14Speaker 4: Jesus in an interview. It doesn't happen as much, But
- 11:17Speaker 4: in sport you can talk about whatever you want to
- 11:20Speaker 4: talk about.
- 11:21Speaker 1: Just play this play well and look. I love you
- 11:25Speaker 1: if you're a believer, I love you if you're an atheist.
- 11:27Speaker 4: Honestly, like cause we're out here to play football and
- 11:29Speaker 4: we have a camaraderie together. How about take advantage of it.
- 11:31Speaker 4: If you are a believer, to use that platform to
- 11:34Speaker 4: speak about the law.
- 11:45Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, you're talking about top players in leftl
- 11:48Speaker 3: Jesus Jesus confronted, you know, evil Jesus.
- 11:51Speaker 2: Jesus was confrontational. So it's it's he was far from passive.
- 11:54Speaker 3: Like you said, let's talk about Sports Spectrum partnering with
- 11:57Speaker 3: Compassion International.
- 11:58Speaker 2: I know a lot about both organizations.
- 12:00Speaker 3: I didn't know about this partnership until you don't got
- 12:02Speaker 3: the pressories about it. What do we need to know
- 12:05Speaker 3: about this sen How are you guys kind of helping
- 12:07Speaker 3: further the mission from the Kingdom.
- 12:10Speaker 4: Yeah, well, Sports Spectrum, as you know, and if people
- 12:12Speaker 4: don't know where a media platform where the intersection of
- 12:15Speaker 4: faith in sport and our mission is to aspire fans
- 12:19Speaker 4: of sport to be followers of Christ of Jesus. And
- 12:22Speaker 4: so a lot of our supporters are a lot of
- 12:24Speaker 4: people that get the magazine or connect with us on
- 12:27Speaker 4: social media or read some of the devotions that are
- 12:29Speaker 4: our staff rights are already believers. And then there are
- 12:32Speaker 4: others who love sports and simply want to, you know,
- 12:36Speaker 4: consume more sports content, and we invite that.
- 12:39Speaker 1: We want to be excellent in that area.
- 12:40Speaker 4: But we also wanted to point people to Christ through
- 12:43Speaker 4: the voices of supporting narratives as well as our athletes.
- 12:46Speaker 1: A Capacity International you.
- 12:48Speaker 4: Know, as you know, they create have services throughout the
- 12:52Speaker 4: world honestly when it comes to pulling kids out of
- 12:54Speaker 4: poverty and not just pulling them out of poverty through
- 12:57Speaker 4: programs meeting their real needs with the to be education,
- 13:01Speaker 4: employment for parents, all those sorts of things. But they
- 13:03Speaker 4: also intlce it with working with churches primarily or other
- 13:08Speaker 4: ministries in order to present the Gospel to kids and
- 13:12Speaker 4: families as well. And so we've been in conjunction with
- 13:15Speaker 4: them before, specifically through a pro athlete's outreach, which is
- 13:19Speaker 4: kind of the housing organization Force Force spectrum.
- 13:22Speaker 1: Compassion has been a partner for a long time.
- 13:24Speaker 4: Several athletes have gone on mission trips with Compassion International.
- 13:29Speaker 4: My wife and our kids, all seven of them ages sixteen.
- 13:32Speaker 1: Down to six.
- 13:33Speaker 4: We went to Guatemala this past summer with Compassion International
- 13:37Speaker 4: and stayed for about a week saw their work in
- 13:40Speaker 4: the country. Was able to experience some of the programs
- 13:43Speaker 4: that the kids go through, that young moms go through,
- 13:46Speaker 4: some of the educational programming at the schools that they have,
- 13:50Speaker 4: and so it's personal for us when it comes to
- 13:53Speaker 4: sponsoring children that we've had a chance to actually meet
- 13:56Speaker 4: on the field.
- 13:57Speaker 1: And so going into the Super Bowl.
- 13:59Speaker 4: We have a part ownership with them, basically meaning that
- 14:01Speaker 4: we in collaboration with them as we go on radio Row,
- 14:04Speaker 4: as we do our podcast will be promoting some of
- 14:07Speaker 4: the work of Compassion as well.
- 14:09Speaker 1: Amen to that.
- 14:10Speaker 3: Let me ask you a football question, another football question
- 14:12Speaker 3: before I let you go, and you played with Tom Brady,
- 14:14Speaker 3: if you won a Super Bowl, let me ask you
- 14:16Speaker 3: two questions. Actually, how did winning a Super Bowl? What
- 14:19Speaker 3: was it like to win Super Bowl emotionally? And secondly,
- 14:22Speaker 3: how did that moment shape how you view life and faith?
- 14:27Speaker 3: Because I'm saying that because it was probably quite a high.
- 14:32Speaker 3: But it didn't last. So give us both answers there
- 14:35Speaker 3: from a sports fan's perspective but also from a biblical perspective.
- 14:39Speaker 2: But what it's like to a Super Bowl?
- 14:42Speaker 4: Yeah, you're right, it doesn't last, which is crazy because
- 14:45Speaker 4: you work your entire life for that moment.
- 14:47Speaker 1: Well, your your entire sports life.
- 14:49Speaker 4: I hate them people say your entire life, but but
- 14:51Speaker 4: you really your entire sports life from when you become
- 14:54Speaker 4: a fan of the game, to playing the game, to
- 14:57Speaker 4: going through college to dealing with injury, you know, to
- 15:00Speaker 4: try to reach this moment and it doesn't last like
- 15:04Speaker 4: you know, nobody cares who won.
- 15:06Speaker 1: Last year, Like all of a sudden, it doesn't matter.
- 15:11Speaker 1: But it's amazing to do.
- 15:12Speaker 4: And so for me, you know, whatever, you're watching the
- 15:15Speaker 4: game this in two weeks this February, understand that there
- 15:19Speaker 4: are going to be a lot of people in a
- 15:20Speaker 4: lot of different places. There are going to be some
- 15:22Speaker 4: guys who when they win the game, it's just going
- 15:25Speaker 4: to be the best thing that ever happened to them,
- 15:27Speaker 4: and they are going to be laded with no reservation.
- 15:31Speaker 4: Then there are gonna be some guys that are on
- 15:33Speaker 4: the team and they won, but they feel like they
- 15:36Speaker 4: didn't play enough, or they didn't contribute enough, or there
- 15:39Speaker 4: was something that wasn't quite right. So they're happy, but
- 15:43Speaker 4: they wish something else would have happened. Then they're gonna
- 15:45Speaker 4: be some guys that you may not even see on
- 15:47Speaker 4: the team that are injured who didn't get to play,
- 15:50Speaker 4: and they may be super happy or they may be
- 15:53Speaker 4: really bittersweet about what happened.
- 15:56Speaker 1: And I was the last group.
- 15:57Speaker 4: I was a guy who tore my a cl was
- 16:00Speaker 4: out of the game, couldn't play, couldn't practice. I was
- 16:03Speaker 4: at the game in Jacksonville when we beat the Eagles,
- 16:06Speaker 4: and I was happy for the team, and I got
- 16:08Speaker 4: a ring and all those sorts of things because I
- 16:10Speaker 4: was on the team. But I felt really bittersweet about
- 16:13Speaker 4: it because I waited this entire time for my life
- 16:16Speaker 4: and worked so hard only to not be able to
- 16:19Speaker 4: actually be on the field and play. And so for me,
- 16:22Speaker 4: it was bittersweet. And I think for all of those
- 16:25Speaker 4: three sections of players, and there's a whole other thing
- 16:29Speaker 4: for coaches and pairs, but for all those three sections,
- 16:32Speaker 4: perspective is important because for the guy who didn't play,
- 16:37Speaker 4: it's not lasting forever. For the guy who won and
- 16:39Speaker 4: was on the field and was the starting quarterback and
- 16:41Speaker 4: was the MVP, it doesn't last forever.
- 16:43Speaker 1: You could ask Tom Brady, you.
- 16:45Speaker 4: Know, for the guy who wishes things to happen better,
- 16:48Speaker 4: it doesn't last forever. And that's why when we look
- 16:51Speaker 4: at our lives as believers and we understand that life
- 16:54Speaker 4: is a vapor, and we understand that we're here today
- 16:57Speaker 4: and we're going tomorrow, it doesn't diminish the importance of
- 17:00Speaker 4: this game because the pressure is going to be real,
- 17:03Speaker 4: the expectations are going to be real. You know, the
- 17:06Speaker 4: desire to win is going to be real. But you
- 17:09Speaker 4: do see it from a perspective of how does me
- 17:12Speaker 4: participating or not participating, How do I do that to
- 17:15Speaker 4: the glory of God? How do I respond in a
- 17:18Speaker 4: way that is pointing people to Jesus? Like, like, how
- 17:21Speaker 4: do I respond in a way when people see me play,
- 17:24Speaker 4: when they hear me give interviews, when they see my response,
- 17:29Speaker 4: does it point to the truth of the Gospel? And
- 17:33Speaker 4: even in our disappointment, because there are incredible opportunities, even
- 17:37Speaker 4: for the losing team. You know, we have this idea
- 17:39Speaker 4: sometimes even as believers. And I've had this before that.
- 17:42Speaker 1: Okay, God, Like I'm a Christian, I'm gonna go in
- 17:46Speaker 1: this game. I'm gonna help you out. I'm gonna catch
- 17:49Speaker 1: the winning touchdown. When I catch the winning touchdown, not
- 17:53Speaker 1: in regulation.
- 17:54Speaker 5: In double overtime, i will be interviewed by every outlet
- 18:00Speaker 5: on the globe, and I'll say something about Jesus.
- 18:05Speaker 1: And because I'll say something about Jesus, people going to
- 18:08Speaker 1: become Christians. And You'll look at me and be like,
- 18:11Speaker 1: thank you, Benjamin for what you did.
- 18:14Speaker 4: But the reality is God doesn't need us for his
- 18:18Speaker 4: name to be known.
- 18:19Speaker 1: He doesn't need us. He invites us into it, and
- 18:23Speaker 1: the harvest that he gleans from that, that his spirit
- 18:25Speaker 1: draws to him is not predicated on our performance in
- 18:29Speaker 1: the game. It's predicated on what he wants to do.
- 18:33Speaker 1: So we are to simply be obedient. And so for
- 18:35Speaker 1: the believers that are in the game, man, it's a
- 18:38Speaker 1: great opportunity, but it's a great responsibility. But I'm more.
- 18:42Speaker 4: Worried about how those guys digest the highs of winning
- 18:48Speaker 4: and your value seems super high, or the lows of losing,
- 18:52Speaker 4: while still understanding that your value is inherent in the
- 18:56Speaker 4: fact that you're created by God that loves you. That's
- 18:59Speaker 4: the less and that's a reminder that hopefully believers have
- 19:03Speaker 4: that allows them to navigate and float through the season
- 19:07Speaker 4: of uncertainty of the ups and down of sport while
- 19:10Speaker 4: still saying, man, you know he loved me so much
- 19:13Speaker 4: that to die for me and that rose again, and
- 19:16Speaker 4: I value because of that, not because of what I
- 19:18Speaker 4: did or didn't do on this field.
- 19:21Speaker 3: If you like today's episode, please subscribe and leave a
- 19:24Speaker 3: five star review. That's how we help more people just
- 19:27Speaker 3: like you find the show. A big thanks to the
- 19:30Speaker 3: team at life Audio for their partnership with us on
- 19:32Speaker 3: the podcast. If you go to lifeaudio dot com, you
- 19:35Speaker 3: will find dozens of other faith centered podcasts in their network.
- 19:39Speaker 2: See you next time.