Palmwoods
District News

June 10,
1999

Page 9

On the Edge
with Pastor Chas Gullo

Football Heroes

WHAT’S happening to the Mighty Broncos - demi gods last season!

Football heroes; athletic stars - all idols in the eyes of the population. The word idol means: something or someone else we worship as a god, a person or thing loved or honoured excessively, an extravagant admirer, a phantom, and an apparition.

This is an extraordinary responsibility to put upon a mere human being who has been gifted in one area of life, not necessarily in an important area, and it usually only draws attention to self.

How often do these idols help someone else in their life by their gift?

We sometimes see these heroes give good advice to young people, like do not do drugs, but in reality we hear of excessive alcohol; steroid taking, gambling and immorality usually concealed behind the front word of these revered humans.

What a confusing message they give out to our young generation that is following.

In the sporting world; man is being rewarded for their gift or talent and sometime paid megabucks; yes they have fine-tuned and disciplined the gift - which I must say came from our creator, and only he wires in our giftings; but we hold up the gift, as something to be worshipped and throw money at; while we should be praising our creator who has wired us up for what gifts we possess.

As a society we reward giftings and talents with mega bucks, but we mock character in people who stand up for what is right. How can we justify paying mega dollars towards people’s gifts in sporting achievement and build giant stadiums etc and yet pour little if any money into character building of our young people with family centre; marriage & family guidance facilities & classes. Proper way of respecting authorities etc. No - we leave character building to nobody qualified and no budget.

Who of the great sporting heroes is going to give us an answer to our drugs, crime, suicide, divorce and violence problems so evident every day in our life. Their glamour lifestyles do not eliminate these problems.

I’m always excited by the few athletes who stop to give praise to their creator for their talent and honour him in all they do.

God gave us the ability to run, jump, throw, swim etc - he knows it’s enjoyable and in life he wants us to enjoy it. But it wasn’t given to us to bring glory to ourselves, but to bring glory to our creator.

Praise does strange things to humans; they get prideful, arrogant and think they are above other people - become untouchable and then we see their demise. But a person who can blind the praise of man with thanksgiving to God remains in balance with both feet on the ground and don’t get puffed up thinking they are supernatural - an idol.

No sporting hero has the answers to life and life’s problems. They may be able to tell us how to run, swim, throw, jump, box better, but that won’t help our life. Only our creator can give us the answer to our life and as we turn to him and we don’t even have to bring money to him to get his attention. We can all enjoy playing and watching sport, but much better than that we can all enjoy knowing God for eternity.

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