Wednesday, July 23, 2008

Conservative?

As I opened the Omaha World Herald today I couldn’t help but notice the headlines which read, “Pelini says NU offense won’t be conservative.” In sports today, there are far too many athletes who compete “conservatively.” Players and coaches in every sport use this word which is very confusing to me. Why would any team play conservatively?

When a player holds back in any way, they are not giving a total release to Christ. Granted, there is strategy involved in each sport but we should never let strategy impact our effort.

Colossians 3:23 says, “Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men.” When I read this verse there seems to be a drastic difference between the word “heartily,” and “conservatively.”

Now I realize that coach Pelini was referring to the strategy more than the mentality. However, as a Christian we need to live our lives radically. A fan should never sit in the stands and say, “That Christian plays conservative.” To me conservative means hesitant, and being hesitant involves fear. I challenge you to give total release performances to Christ!

Brian Conklin
Omaha Metro FCA

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Brian that is so true, because when you compete conservatively, you aren't giving an all out effort to represent Jesus. I had a time after I fell in the hurdles where I ran conservative because I was afraid of falling and both God's way and Man's way weren't a success. I left the track meet disappointed in myself.

Conklin Family said...

Hey Isaiah,

The beauty of Doing Sports God's Way is that even when we do fail and are disappointed in ourselves we can have great hope if we are followers of Christ. As athletes we need to learn to become aware of the greatness of the Gospel. If we can learn to exalt Christ in our successes and failures we will have a better understanding of why we Do Sports God's Way. It's all about the glory of Christ.