Reflections for 1/8/12

"You are my beloved son, in you I am well pleased."

These are the words that we are told in the Gospel's that were said to, or about Jesus at his baptism.  Powerful words actually.  From that moment on Jesus went off into the world teaching, healing, forgiving and acting as compassionately to a hurting world as he had the power to do.  All of it though starting with a word of encouragement, an empowering sentence if you will.  An affirmation of faith in, before anything had actually been done.  I know that I do much better when I hear positive things about me.  I can even name people who have said close to such things that have helped me to achieve what I'm capable of, even when I didn't believe it to be possible.

As I checked into the social media sites today, I was amazed at all the proclamations about how much God loves Tim Tebow.  After all God really must love him to let him win a football game. Because by all accounts he's not a very good passer.  His team was .500.  The odds were not really in his favor and yet his team came out victorious in the end. They didn't destroy the Steelers mind you, but a win is a win.

I do believe Tim Tebow is a beloved child of God, I do not believe that God rewarded that status with a win for the Broncos. The Steelers have their share of Evangelical Christians too.  What is intriguing to me about Tim Tebow is not that he is so much more blessed than me or anyone else. But how he seems to have translated that beloved child of God status and used it to bring something much deeper to the surface and intangible that goes beyond any actual talent he has.  Lord knows he's a better football player than I am, I know that God loves me just as much.

I also if some people realize that they are actually making fun of Tim's beliefs with statements about God loving him more.  Tim being a person of faith will give credit to God for giving him more talent than most of us have at playing football.  And for giving him the one thing he and certainly share a belief that we've been given what we need to succeed and be happy with what we are able to do.


Congratulations Broncos and all the other teams that won. Now if we could get as excited about ending hunger, poverty, hatred and war because those are things God actually cares about.

Blessings,
Ed