Football & free will

Football fans can be sooooo touchy.

In my last blog , I wrote about Brett Favre's desire to come back from retirement and play quarterback in the National Football League at least one more year. I've been intrigued by Favre's perplexing flirtation with retirement. Here's one of the greatest quarterbacks to play the game. He's earned esteem (and millions of dollars) and won two Super Bowls by making split-second decision. But he couldn't decide whether to hang up his cleats. First, he came back to "his" team, the Green Bay Packers . And now, he's been traded to the New York Jets .

And me being me, I'm always wondering about the spiritual implications of life. Retirement, of course, is one of life's major milestones. And the decision to retire or not is enormous. For some folks, it's a financial deal. But not Favre. He probably doesn't even know how much money he has, much less how he could spend it.

So, I've been wondering if the source of his angst is identity. He's been a standout football player since he was a little kid. His identity's been tied up in being a football hero. Giving that up is hard. And from a theological perspective, if his identity were a child of God, and not a football hero, he never would have to give it up. Even after he retired—or, worse still from a Packers standpoint, got traded to the Chicago Bears.

Don't pick on the pack

But a Packers fan apparently thought I was picking on the Cheesehead Nation. He was irate that I would use my "religious platform to critique a football player." Football player. School teacher. Banker. Plumber. Nurse. Truck driver. Preacher. Wal-Mart greeter. What ever you "do for a living," faith ought to offer a critique. First, it should critique how well you work. If we're truly grateful to God for the gift of work and service, then the way we perform reflects our gratitude. Think of work as praise and service as worship. On top of that, our faith relationship to God in Christ ought to critique who we are as a person. We were created as a child of God. We were born to love Jesus. How well we live out those relationships "critique" every person on the planet.

Then, the Packers fan got personal. He wanted to know why God made Brett Favre selfish as well as a spectacular quarterback. And he wondered how a good and loving God could allow all Packers and Packers fans everywhere to undergo such humiliation as they've endured the past few weeks.

I feel his pain. I'm a Dallas Cowboys fan. We've had our share of fabulously talented yet obscenely selfish players. And The Book of Football Humiliation contains far more chapters about the Cowboys than the Pack.

Fabulosity and foibles

But since I can't help but think about the spiritual meanings behind the fabulosity and foibles of football, the writer's question points to a great theological truth: God gave Brett Favre the talent to become a great football player. But if Favre's a world-class selfish prima dona (and I don't think he is), then he got there all by himself.

God gives us talents and abilities. It's up to us to use them. Favre spent years honing his skills. He also dipped deeply into the well of desire, and he pushed himself to be the best. He succeeeded, with all due apologies to my Cowboy heroes Staubach, Aikman and Romo. I believe God enjoyed watching Favre and the Pack play football on Sunday afternoons, because Brett  stretched his abilities to the maximum and exulted in the thrill and beauty of the game.

The same could be true of every one of us. God loves it when we do our very best, and especially when we find great joy and gladness in stretching and exercising our gifts.

But as for selfishness. God wants us to be like Christ—selfless. We are most like Christ when we exalt others and sacrifice ourselves for their blessing. Unfortunately, all of us fail. Maybe your sin is selfishness. Maybe it's lust. Or greed, gossiping, laziness, rage, or something else. (I know mine, but I'm not going to tell you.) When we excel at our flaws, we're outside the will of God. That's not God's desire for us.

We're free—to succeed or fail

But here's the amazingly ridiculous part: God gives us the freedom to fail. That's because, in the game of life, freedom is part of the price of admission. We can't be totally free to exercise our gifts if we're not free to flaunt our flaws. Freedom is reciprocal. It's not a one-way street.

So, Brett Favre has been free to become a superb athlete and, just maybe, a selfish one, too. What are you free to be?