GO HAWKS!

Even if you're not a big football fan, here in Seattle we're pretty pumped! The Hawks are 4-0 on the season. A franchise first. A come-from-behind thriller last week narrowly averted a city-wide epidemic of heart attacks by Seahawks fans.

OK, we're all excited, but really - does football matter? To one family it's been lifechanging. Here, by permission, is a letter we received this past week from a client:

What if you are a kid so anxious you can’t talk to people?

What if you are a kid so anxious you can’t look people in the eye?

What if on some days, you are so anxious that you cannot even be around other

people? How will you communicate and develop friendships or find community?

Perhaps God would give you a good counselor or kind parents or a nice big sister? Perhaps God would intervene through medication? Maybe your parents would force you to join the speech club at school or role-play with you night after night: “Here is how you greet someone.” or, “Let’s practice looking into my eyes; I will time you.” We tried most of the above to help our son, but (of course) the Lord had a better way.

Our son went out for the High School football team. He had never played football. He is in the 11th grade.

It wasn’t just any football team. It was a team with a kind, perceptive, encouraging coach. Sort of a coach/psychologist, although in real life he is the owner of a construction company. A coach who, when my son wanted to quit after the third day of practice, didn’t argue with him, but instead, timed his 40 yard run, and proved to him that he was fast. A coach who endured him getting discouraged day after day. Additionally, this special team was staffed by coaches who had an extra measure of patience and the ability to stop what they were doing to go over to my son and explain what he was doing wrong and to watch him carefully and see when he did something right so they could praise him.

It was a team with kids who could look past their own lives and see someone else. These kids became his teammates and provided him with a new identity. They gave a hand-up when he ended up on the ground after a play. They taught him the special “fist-bump-football hand-shake” while he stood watching on the sidelines. They tackled him and blocked him and shared Gatorade bottles with him. And, when my son finally played in his first game and missed his block, which resulted in the sacking of our quarterback, one kid took a knee beside him on the sidelines, put his arm around him and consoled him.

Consoled him.

We need someone to come alongside of us, put their arm around us and console us when we fall short or mess up. We yearn for real connection. We have fears that limit us and prevent us from reaching our potential. Jesus works through His people. He is called the consolation of Israel. He is the balm of Gilead. He wants to use you and me to comfort the broken-hearted and to put the solitary into families.

Football forces you to touch. Touch teaches you to look. Looking leads to connection. Connection leads to community.

Whose life will you touch today?

"Not by might, nor by power but by My Spirit, says the Lord of hosts." Zechariah 4:6

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