With NFL training camps underway, football is back! Starving for football content, we look for practice reports from team-beat reporters and interviews galore from players and coaches.
The reports and sound bites getting out there are often misleading because coaches are feeding media members selective information or narratives they want to circulate.
They have motives and reasons for why they divulge certain facts and hold back some of the truth. They also won’t run certain plays when the media is around.
Plus, many reports come out about particular players and how well they perform in shorts and t-shirts at practice, but that doesn’t explain the full picture either.
As Fantasy Football managers, we have to read through the smoke screens to determine which players are going to be key contributors and starters…how carries will be distributed among running backs in a committee…what style of offense new coaches will use…how good rookies actually are…and the gamesmanship from coaches who don’t want various information to get out.
This is what makes Fantasy Football so wild and unpredictable and we do our best to decipher between fact and fiction.
Every year, we’re always shocked in week one by how well or how much some guys play when it wasn’t the case in training camp or what we heard in the offseason.
A smoke screen is defined as “a ruse designed to disguise someone’s real intentions or activities” and NFL teams are notorious for this because they believe it allows them to have an advantage.
If we’re honest with ourselves, we also use this tactic in our own lives. We position ourselves to come across in a way we think will be beneficial to us…or we tell half-truths to get what we want and establish the narrative we desire.
We also mislead people and send misdirections so we can conceal our real intentions and activities to create a selfish advantage. For people to think more highly of us, we even conceal the truth or feed them “practice reports” that don’t explain the full picture.
When we intentionally want others to believe certain things and buy a false “storyline” about us, we make it hard for people to decipher fact from fiction in our lives.
However, as followers of Jesus, we must live with integrity and speak the truth. When we follow Him, we don’t need to wear “masks” or puff ourselves up. We don’t need to trick people into thinking we’re something we’re not or going to do something we won’t follow through with.
Thankfully, we don’t have to live our lives based on lies because when we know Jesus we know the truth and He’s given us grace and freedom. We don’t have to pretend like we have it all together and tell people what we think they want to hear. We can be honest and transparent.
Jesus provides us with the strength we need to reveal the truth about Him and ourselves. The apostle Paul shares his heartbeat about his ministry, and we can pursue a similar perspective found in 1 Thessalonians 2:3-5 (AMP):
“For our appeal does not come from delusion or impure motives, nor [is it motivated] by deceit [our message is complete, accurate, and based on the truth—it does not change].
“But just as we have been approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel [that tells the good news of salvation through faith in Christ], so we speak, not as [if we were trying] to please people [to gain power and popularity], but to please God who examines our hearts [expecting our best].
“For as you well know, we never came with words of flattery nor with a pretext for greed—God is our witness—”
We must continue to cling to the truth of the gospel as we hear it, meditate on it, and share it with pure motives. As we grow and mature in our knowledge and understanding of God’s Word and character, we’ll also be able to discern and decipher the truth from the lies coming from those in the world – even false teachers.
Ephesians 4:14-15 (NLT) explains, “Then we will no longer be immature like children. We won’t be tossed and blown about by every wind of new teaching. We will not be influenced when people try to trick us with lies so clever they sound like the truth. Instead, we will speak the truth in love, growing in every way more and more like Christ, who is the head of His body, the church.”
Today, let’s be encouraged to drop the “smoke screens” we may be using, and see through the ones from others. Let’s commit to living truth-filled lives rooted in Jesus.
I’m Bryce Johnson, and you can UNPACK that!
PRAYER: Heavenly Father, I want to be truthful in my interactions with others and I desire to be known for my integrity. Forgive me for the smoke screens I put up and the ways I mislead people. Help me to move forward with pure motives. In Jesus’ name, I pray, Amen.
2. What are the reasons why you might hold back the truth?
