When Reading Almost Became a Sport
One of my dreams came true this NFL season. Well, almost, then sort of. It had to do with the Philadelphia Eagles. I’m not talking about their Super Bowl win, but what happened in their playoff game against the Packers. The camera caught one of their star wide receivers, A.J. Brown, reading a book on the side lines in between plays. I was skeptical at first, thinking it must be staged, as I didn’t know any football players that read books growing up-kidding! But once I realized it was real, I thought, “Finally! The first step toward reading becoming a sport.” Not so fast, as the sports media did not share the sentiment. Their responses were more like, “How could a truly committed player be reading on the sidelines? What? Is he bored? Is he ignoring everyone else? Doesn’t he realize there’s a game going on?” Of course people jumped to such conclusions pretty quickly without asking him.
After the game (which they won), they asked him what was up with the book. He said (I’m paraphrasing), “Well, I like to read, and I have a passage in that book that I read between plays to help me recenter and refocus my mind. All players have something they do between plays to focus. Some listen to music, some talk with other players, and this is what I do.” That wasn’t what they expected to hear, but it made sense and in my mind opened the door for reading to become its own sport. Time will tell.
Of course the next thing everyone wanted to know (including me) was the title of the book. The book is called Inner Excellence by Jim Murphy, who serves as a mental coach to high performing athletes. After the name of the book became public, the book became an overnight best seller on Amazon. I’m not ashamed to admit I ordered a copy because I wanted to see what it was about. After reading half the book, it seems clear to me the author is a Christian, who often urges one to find the purpose for which God has made them, and often quotes C.S. Lewis and Tim Keller.
One of my favorite paragraphs in the book is where he quotes Scripture without saying it is Scripture. He writes about how important discipline is, and how discipline requires a measure of suffering. Then he explains why it is important, “because suffering produces endurance, endurance produces character, and character produces hope.” That is a quote from Romans 5:3-5 (our memory verses for July and August last year).
I’ve been thinking about that verse and how it applies to what we’ve been studying in 1 Peter. Last Sunday we looked at the importance of active humility. Choosing humility requires saying no to self, saying no to our natural tendencies and desires, and trusting God’s timing over ours. In fact, the quote I shared from Elisabeth Elliot was so powerful, I’m including it here for you to review.
I dethrone God in my heart if I demand that He act in ways that satisfy my idea of justice. It’s the same spirit that taunted, “If thou be the Son of God come down from the cross.” There is unbelief. There is even rebellion in the attitude that says “God has no right to do this.” But God is God and if He is God, He is worthy of my worship and service and I will find rest no where but in His will and that will is infinitely unmeasurably unspeakably beyond my largest notions of what He is up to.
-Elisabeth Elliot from her book Through Gates of Splendor
Ask yourself this week, what ways do I need to deny self to experience God’s best in 2025? How do I need to trust that He is at work even when I don’t see it yet? Pray for God to give you wisdom and, of course, we can all hope to see reading become a new sport in the near future.