Mark Gilroy

Bringing Books to Life!

10 Signs Football Is Upon Us

10. every morning at 6:30 your house’s windows shudder and shake unevenly from the percussion section of local high school marching band practice – six miles away.

9. coverage of the US presidential election and European bailouts drop to pages four and five respectively when the USA Today NFL preview edition hits newsstands.

8. ESPN begins advertising the two-hour pre preseason special guide to new fall beer commercials.

7. a stack of decade-old-plus t-shirts your spouse, girlfriend or mom has been asking you to get rid of is carefully boxed and carried to the crawl space – and replaced by a box of decade-old-plus sweatshirts your spouse, girlfriend or mom had been asking you to get rid of that was carefully stored in the crawl space.

6. you are momentarily overcome by a light-headed giddy sense of euphoria that you won’t have to watch any more baseball games to get a sports fix until the World Series is played sometime during football season in what appears to be blizzard conditions.

5. colleges and universities allow young people that are are into extracurricular activities like “pursuing a degree”and “hitting the library” back on campus in time for the first football game of the year.

4. you realize you know the first and middle names of every member of the offensive line of your alma mater even if you can’t get first names of your own kids right every time.

3. ignoring pain from bunions and planter fasciitis you have your youngest child hold a football vertically on the ground so you can see if you can still kick a game-winning field goal as measured by the back of your garage roof.

2. you call your niece – at her father’s and fiance’s request – to see if you can talk her out of that Saturday afternoon wedding date that falls at the same time as the big rivalry game she is considering.

1. as you stretch out the inflamed rotator cuff and extend the half-locked knee joint, you think back fondly on all your old football injuries – even if you never played the sport.

Distractions and Focus

Since we are surrounded by so many examples of faith, we must get rid of everything that slows us down, especially sin that distracts us. We must run the race that lies ahead of us and never give up. We must focus on Jesus, the source and goal of our faith. He saw the joy ahead of him, so he endured death on the cross and ignored the disgrace it brought him. Then he received the highest position in heaven, the one next to the throne of God. (Hebrews 12:1-3, God’s Word)

Hebrews chapter 11 is known as the “Faith Hall of Fame”. It provides a cast of characters that walked by faith and endured incredible challenges and disappointments, despite never receiving the full measure of reward they were expecting.

How did they do it? How did they overcome?

They kept their eyes on the prize. Their faith was empowered by an unwavering hope.

These first three verses of Hebrews 12 continue that theme. For Christians, keeping the faith in tough times happens by focusing on Jesus. He is the “source and goal of our faith”—he modeled the very same focus in His life. When going through the agony of His death, “he saw the joy ahead of him, so he endured.”

In addition to a call to focus in these verses, there is also the command to get rid of the distractions that take our attention from what matters most. We live in a culture that is filled with distractions. Many of us have lost sight of what really matters chasing after things that are meaningless at best and destructive at worst.

What a great paradigm for walking in faith. But the twin commands to get rid of distractions and stay focused on what matters are great for almost every area of life, from business success in tough times to family unity when there are areas of disagreement.

What is slowing you down? What do you need to get rid of? What do you need to focus on? It will make all the difference in your life, no matter what you are enduring right now.