There are polarizing responses to the question, "Does God Care Who Wins?" NFL Network's analyst, Mark Kriegel, has stated, “I refuse to believe that God – anyone’s God – has a rooting interest in the outcome of something as secular and perverse as a game.”
Then there's 98-year-old Sister Jean who said to the Loyola Chicago's Final Four 2018 team in her chaplain role, “I told them that we were going to win, that we could do it and that God would be on our side.”
With back and forth claims, the debate has even attracted the interest of Sports Illustrated. Their feature article for the February 2013 pre-Super Bowl issue was titled, “Does God Care Who Wins the Super Bowl?”
We probably all have an answer to this question, but today let's unpack the implications. If we say “No,” the tendency is to trivialize sports and put our thinking into two buckets.
In the first bucket, we put all the things we think God cares about, such as poverty, hunger, sex trafficking, and prayer. In the second bucket, we put all the things we don't think God cares about, such as sports and winning.
We accept the idea that God is more interested in spiritual stuff than secular stuff but still become confused as to what should actually go into each bucket.
A comment made by Hall of Famer, Kurt Warner, gives us a good illustration of this: “Do I believe that as a son of God that my life is important to Him? No question about it…but I don’t know how exactly that fits into winning and losing per se.”
The greater problem is we care about who wins - in sports, in business, in our families, and in life. If God doesn’t care and we do, we are baffled by what to do with this tension. To resolve it, we either squelch our desire to win...or move away from God in our disappointment and confusion.
On the other hand, if we say “Yes,” the tendency is to turn the message of Christianity into a transactional one. When we credit God with a victory, we imply the winners win God’s favor and the losers don’t - even without explicitly saying so.
God becomes a genie to manipulate by our good "deeds." He rewards the winners and punishes the losers.
This turns us into either proud winners who are sure of what we've done right...or humiliated losers who wonder what we've done wrong.
As a result, the Gospel gets turned into a message of good works. In our struggles and failures, we move away from God because of such demands.
However, there is another answer.
God does care who wins, but for very different reasons than we do. He cares about who wins and loses because of the way the winning and losing contribute to His glory. The truth is, He can be glorified when we win or lose.
As John Piper reminds us, “God’s first commitment is to His own glory, and this is the basis for ours. God’s chief end is to glorify God and enjoy His glory forever.”
When I pondered this idea, I realized that God cares more about the wins and losses and the winners and the losers than I do. He cares more than any player, coach or fan ever has or ever will.
That fact personally astounded me when I wrestled with this question after losing in a playoff at PGA Tour Qualifying School. My passion for winning didn’t need to be suppressed...it just needed to be redirected from my glory to His.
Instead of moving me away from God, this answer drew me to Him. What I discovered was an answer that not only honors a great and magnificent God but also satisfies the desires of my heart.
I'm Bob Schindler and you can unpack that!
Prayer: Heavenly Father, Your care is unlimited and spreads over all time and all You have made. Show me where I diminish that care or corrupt it by making it earned or deserved. Redirect the pursuit of my own glory in sports, my career, my family, and my life – to the heart-satisfying pursuit of Your glory. In Jesus Name, Amen.
*For more on this idea, check out Does God Care Who Wins? at https://amzn.to/2Mopq7Q and listen to our podcast with Bob HERE.
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