Does God care who wins the Super Bowl?

The question of God's interest in the winning team in professional sports lies beyond a simple request for divine support. We ask this question in a dismissive fashion because we think that God has more important things to do than to pay attention to who wins and loses our sporting events. After all it's only a game.

Satchel Page once confessed, "I never had a job. I always played baseball." In the scope of life aren't there more important things? The interest in this question is a mask used to address the true question held dear to our hearts: Does God care about me?

We easily forget that the Lord is not like us. He is able to see all things at all times. He is more easily aware at a much greater depth than we are of not only what is happening on the gridiron in Arizona but also what is happening in the remotest parts of the globe.

Proverbs 15:3 reads, "The eyes of the Lord are in every place, keeping watch on the evil and the good."

We can never outrun God. We can never go anywhere that he does not see. We can never be engaged in any activity of which he does not know. He sees the poorest and the wealthiest through the same unbiased eyes. His interest is not only in the lives on the field, but also in the stands and watching in living rooms at home.

In gazing upon the gridiron, God's interest lies not in who is the winner of the Super Bowl but in how the Super Bowl was won. In your life and mine the Lord's primary interest is not in your accomplishments but in the character by which you lived. His desire is transformation of the soul, mind and body. He takes actions resulting in a transformed inner character that leads to transformed outer conduct.

God is interested in the Super Bowl because he is interested in the players, and he is interested in you.

Rob Hurtgen is a husband, father and serves as the associate pastor at the First Baptist Church in Jackson.