Football

I’ve been reflecting at lot lately on ‘the tough times’. Those times if your life, your work, your walk with God when things seem to be getting harder and harder instead of easier, and the light at the end of the tunnel is the proverbial flame-thrower. There’s no easy fix to this, but there is an answer – throw all your attention on God, and stick it out to the finish.

I saw a real example of this determination to push on until the last moment this week. Chelsea fans may want to look away now, but the perseverance of the Barcelona team in their European semi-final is exactly what I’m talking about. A goal down for most of the game, Barcelona were going out of the cup. To make things worse, they’d been reduced to 10 men, and hadn’t managed a single shot on target all night. A lesser team night have thrown in the towel and played out the final minutes trying only to prevent an even worse defeat. But Barcelona continued to attack, and with barely two minutes remaining in injury time, scored the goal that would put them into the final.

And this reminded me of a similar match a decade ago (which is scary), when Manchester United played Bayern Munich in the 1999 European final. Just like the Chelsea match, the opposition were 1-0 ahead, with only seconds remaining on the clock. As United won a corner, the commentator remarked, “Can Manchester United score? They always score”. That season, United had forged a reputation as a team who never gave up, who chased results right until the final whistle, and who were able to pull something out of the bag no matter how tough the situation. Scarcely a minute later, United had scored two goals and secured an incredible victory against the odds.

I know that football is just a game, and I don’t intend to make light of what could be incredibly difficult circumstances, but I believe that the example of those teams in those matches is exactly what Paul meant in his letter to the Corinthian church, when he said ‘Run [your race] in such a way that you win the prize’ – push on, run hard right to the end, and God will bring you through.

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