The softball season ended for me tonight and my wife and daughters were there to see my glorious winless departure from the game. That’s right, we didn’t win a single game. We came close a few times but as we all know… “close don’t count.”
We realized that in our ten years of knowing each other, this was the first time Anita came and cheered me on while I played on a sports team. As athletically obsessed as I am this was surprising. One of my favorite parts of tonight was hearing my girls rooting for my buddy Steve and me. There is something about the voice of a three year old screaming for you that gives you an added measure of confidence and pressure at the same time. I mean I didn’t want to let my girl down did I?
I can only hope to walk away from this experience of constant defeat with the same class and patience that my boy Brady Quinn had on Saturday. To truly appreciate how much self control this kid has you have to go back to the beginning of his senior season at Notre Dame. It was his face on every single college football magazine and news story as my Fighting Irish were touted as the favorite for National Champs and he was to be the Heisman trophy winner. As Notre Dame began to drop in the polls and Quinn’s performance against high-level opponents looked shaky, he remained positive and upbeat. I’m impressed with Quinn for all of these things. I’ll be even more impressed if he doesn’t allow the some-what embarrassing fiasco of draft day to create a rather large chip on his shoulder. As the consummate Irish fan, I do believe Brady will be very successful as the Brown’s climb back into Super Bowl contention and Jamarcus Russell fades to yet another first pick quarterback bust.
At any rate, humility is what was impressive on Saturday. With the crack down on behavior off the field, Roger Goodell will probably push Quinn to be the new face of the NFL. Wouldn’t it be nice if the church could be thought of as humble? I’m quite sure if Christians everywhere began swallowing their pride and started putting others first the image of a dogmatic, intolerant, uneducated religious people would begin to fade. I know that what impresses me most in someone is humility. When I began getting to know Todd Fields (a worship leader at North Point) the thing I walked away telling people that he was the most humble person I’ve ever met.
Humility is what impressed people about Jesus. He always put others first. His reasoning for leaving Heaven was humility. The Bible in fact tells us that if “if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land.” Humility is difficult because it is counter intuitive to everything culture teaches us. Culture says, “promote yourself, and get what’s yours. If you don’t do it for yourself, no one will give it to you.” Humility… Christ says, “the first shall be last and the last shall be first.” Man will my softball team be good in heaven.