You know going into this weekend of sports I was very optimistic of the outcomes of games for teams I was watching and routing for. It started on Friday night with my high school winning the sectional title in football for the first time in its 32 year history. Now that was awesome and as I read of the victory I looked at my fantasy football team and thought, "oh yeah it's a sure win", for the guy I was playing was and underdog to me. I looked at Notre Dame's chances of being successful against Navy, whom they have beaten 43 straight times, and felt very confident. Of course you have NASCAR as well and my driver being Jeff Gordon, I thought surely he could do better than his next closet competitor Jimmy Johnson. Then comes Pro Football (which of course many people in the south don't pay attention to it) which I have two teams. One team the San Francisco 49ers, which were playing the lowly Atlanta Falcons, and of course the Colts whom were playing the Patriots gave me a scare, but I had confidence for victory. So here we are with a weekend full of sports and when everything goes as planned it will be a great sports weekend for Jonathan.

Well of course it started off great, the weekend that is, however it fell very quickly. On Saturday I got to witness the greatest gift ever, coming from Notre Dame and handed to Navy. In the third overtime of a game Notre Dame should of won (after all Navy got beat by Ball State), they handed Navy the victory to celebrate in South Bend. Then of course I got home on Sunday afternoon, to realize that the 49ers got beat, shortly followed by the colt's demise. The colts were up by 6 with 8 minutes to go and lost by four. How do you do that? Of course Jeff Gordon didn't win the race and to make my weekend wonderful I got to watch Jimmy Johnson win and take the points lead in NASCAR with him. So with the bummer of all bummers in front of me, I held hope on my fantasy football team to pull me out of the weekend a winner. Well the team I played, whom was the underdog by 11 points, beat me 199 points to my 95 points. So wow what a sports weekend. Some of you may or may not understand what I went through with this sports weekend, but I love sports and love to route for my teams. Sometimes though we hang too much of our emotion on those who can let us down.

Nothing like putting all your hope in all these areas just be let down. Now how to tie this into something spiritual, I'm sure that is what you are thinking. How can he turn this around from a rant on sports to apply it? Well that my brother and sister is an interesting twist. I think back to Jesus before the crucifixion and how he must of felt when one of his closet disciples didn't put their own hope in Jesus. Think back to Luke 22:39-46 and how Jesus had to return to the disciples 3 times to remind them to stay awake while he prayed. More so than that, what about when peter denied Christ three times in Mark 14:66-72. How did those actions feel to Jesus? Did he get angry, hurt, or upset at them for falling asleep or for Peter denying him? So where are we to put our hope? I can tell you it's not in any sports team for certain for they will let you down. However if you look in 1 Timothy 6:17, Paul instructs us where our hope should be. You can also look in Romans 15:13, in which we hear "the God of hope fill you with all the joy and peace as you trust in him". So what are you going to do? Put your hope in something on this earth like sports or put your hope in Jesus? Always remember 2 Timothy 2:19, "Nevertheless, God's solid foundation stands firm, sealed with this inscription: 'The Lord knows those who are his, '."