If you need a motto or a resolution or a hashtag, here’s the one: #Learn From The Past-Live For The Present-Long For The Future.
God’s tomorrow will be better than today. In sports and in life, this hope and this hunch, this prospect and this promise, this potential and this possibility keeps us going and keeps us yearning and keeps us longing for what lies ahead. And that’s why we say “there’s always next year.” And that’s God’s Playbook.
But we still need to live today and we need to live for today. And we need to learn for tomorrow what we left out yesterday in order to ensure that we’ll forever live like Apollo. Yes, Apollo. And why Apollo? There’s good reason we were taught Greek mythology in the 7th grade. The only problem is we didn’t (or I didn’t) remember to learn or learn to remember what we were taught.
Apollo was the Greek god of truth and light and prophesy and poetry and music and healing. Wow. Living a life of truth and light and poetry and music and healing and fulfilled prophesy is a life worth living. But as we all know, all of these things are not in or from the Greek small “g” god Apollo; they’re all in the Almighty and only wise God of the Bible.
And that’s what sports teaches us. There’s always hope. We just have to have faith. Sports looks and sounds and feels so spiritual because it is. Sports is and sports are absolutely spiritual. And I look forward to making my mark and preaching this power point in God’s tomorrow and in life’s today.
Sports teaches us that we need to take it one day at a time, one game at a time and one play at a time. Many things happen in a day and in a game and in our lives that we don’t like or don’t enjoy. But as they say, “that’s life.” So learn from yesterday, live for today, and long for tomorrow; a tomorrow without regret but filled with function and fulfillment and accomplishment and achievement.
As we look back over 2015 and look forward into 2016, let’s not cry over spilled milk. What’s done is done. This season is almost over and we have a new one to look forward to. So let’s all remember the words of the great hymns, including this one by Alison Kraus:
I don’t know about tomorrow
I just live from day to day
I don’t borrow from the sunshine
For it’s skies may turn to gray
I don’t worry o’er the future
For I know what Jesus said
And today He’ll walk beside me
For He knows what lies ahead
And this hymn about not knowing about tomorrow ties in very neatly with Alfred Henry Ackley’s hymn about God’s tomorrow, which is one of my favorites:
God’s tomorrow, God’s tomorrow
Ev’ry cloud will pass away
At the dawning of that day
God’s tomorrow, no more sorrow
For I know that God’s tomorrow
Will be better than today!
