Dear Crosswalkers,
Steve Johnson is the star wide receiver for the Buffalo Bills football team. He is having a great year. In fact, I happen to have him on my fantasy league team. Last Sunday, he had a perfect pass in his hands that would have given his team an overtime victory over the heavily favored Steelers. He would be either the hero or the goat. BAAAAA! He dropped the ball! Devastated, the 24-year-old watched in horror as the Steelers marched down the field for the game-winning field goal. "I had the game in my hands and I dropped it," Johnson told reporters after Sunday's game. "Humbled. Humbled… I'll never get over it. Ever."
What made even greater news is that after the game, he sent a twitter message venting his frustration and seemingly blaming God for the dropped pass! This is what he wrote:
I PRAISE YOU 24/7!!!!!! AND THIS HOW YOU DO ME!!!!! YOU EXPECT ME TO LEARN FROM THIS? HOW?!!! ILL NEVER FORGET THIS!! EVER!!!
THX THO…
Interesting that he says at the end, “THX THO…” Thanks for other blessings? Or Thanks for nothing! Only Steve knows for sure!
One skeptic commented that players often thank God after a victory, so it’s refreshing to see God get blamed after a loss. But is it healthy to blame everything on God? If we’re honest, privately we do wonder why God doesn’t bless us with victory after victory. Or at least a respite from some defeats! We do blame God. We do have a natural tendency to deflect blame and responsibility from ourselves and shift it to someone else. God is an easy target.
The NT says, If we say we have no sin, we are only fooling ourselves and refusing to accept the truth. But if we confess our sins to him, he is faithful and just to forgive us and to cleanse us from every wrong (1 John 1:8-9).
These verses say we need to be honest with God. Then we can experience forgiveness and freedom. The passage goes on to say that then we are also free to be honest with ourselves and with each other.
It’s hard for some of us to do this. There are two great obstacles to honesty: One is growing up in a family where honesty wasn’t valued, but appearances were. And the other is a fear of rejection, or a fear of being hurt again.
The Bible says it’s best to be honest and admit where we are weak, where you have sins, where we’ve blown it. Those of you who are in a recovery program know that you’re only as sick as your secrets. This is what I love about NA and AA – you admit your weakness and get help from the group. You say, “This is where I’m at,” and you admit it. Well we’re all in recovery. We are all SIN positive people and we all need the healing that honesty opens the door for.
One Wednesday of this week, Steve Johnson talked candidly about his controversial tweet. “God is everything,” he said. “I feel like he’s the Creator, and he’s 100 per cent good. I simply just asked ‘Why?’ I was not blaming him or any of that. Why would I? But it happened, and the way people took it, is the way they took it. They can say what they want, it’s fine with me. I’m still going to keep doing what I have to do to keep being a good receiver.” Johnson went on to say he’s been getting a tremendous amount of support from his teammates, friends, family, and even Buffalo’s all-time leading receiver, Andre Reed, who called him on Tuesday. What did the great receiver tell Johnson? “He just said it happens to the best of us,” Johnson said.
This Sunday we’re beginning a new series of messages entitled “The Time of the Season.” The New Testament says that “When the right time came, God sent his Son....” (Galatians 4:4). Christmas is that magical place where time and eternity met, and the world has never been the same. In this series we will see that Christmas is the right time to receive forgiveness, release fears, rebuild relationships, renew faith, and refresh hope! We will kick it off this week by looking at Christmas being the right time to receive forgiveness, and as part of our service we will celebrate the Lord’s Supper!
Love in Jesus,
Pastor John Christie
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