Passion and Football

The Major League Soccer season (MLS) kicked off this weekend. My beloved Chicago Fire opened on the road at FC Dallas. The hated “hoops”. The Fire will actually play their first 9 games on the road waiting for the opening of their new stadium in June. The season started off on a very down note. The Fire lost 3-2. It was especially disappointing considering we were up 0-1 and 1-2 before Dallas came back to win. The only encouraging thing was that a couple of our young players played extremely well. Most notably Chris Rolfe.

It’s very difficult to explain the passion associated with being a football (soccer) fan to pretty much anyone. The rest of the world understands but Americans just don’t get it. You live and die with your club. The ups and downs are incredible. I was pretty much grumpy all Saturday evening after the Fire loss. I don’t know many fans of traditional American sports that come close to most football fans.

Unfortunately, when I compare this aspect of my life and being a follower of Jesus the comparison just isn’t that good. Many times I’m not nearly as passionate or concerned about my spiritual life as I am about how the Fire are doing, what moves the front office is making or even how some of our former players are doing in Europe. I want to be. I want to be extremely passionate about following Jesus. I want to think virtually all the time about Jesus. About what being a student of His means for me day-by-day, hour-to-hour. But, it’s not. I think it’s that way for most of us.

’ve been confused by this in my own life and what I’ve observed in other followers of Jesus for many years. Why do we live so dispassionate, so quiet lives in light of the absolutely amazing, overwhelming gift of grace in Jesus? People of other faiths so often put us to shame. I went to college with a couple guys from Palestine. They were Arabs and Muslim. They would occasionally (though not very often) engage those of us who were Christians in debate. It was amazing to me how they knew sections of the Koran from memory, even sections of our scriptures. To be honest it put me to shame. But did it impress this on me enough to change my ways. No.

Hopefully one day I will come to the point where my relationship with Jesus will be more important to me than it is now. Or at least I’ll demonstrate by my calendar and actions that it is. With God’s strength I hope…

Oh, and by the way...
GO FIRE!
Tradition, Honor, Passion
Don't stop living in the Red!