I am a Boston sports fan. You may have heard that the New England Patriots won the Super Bowl this year. Well, now what has happened, is that after the season has ended, there begins the time of free agency. That’s when the contracts finish for some of the players and they can be “dated” by teams and choose which team they want to sign their next contract with.
So, in the very first days of the free agency period, it just so happens that the Patriots lost 3 of their best defenders to other teams. So, what has happened? Well, just that all the fans are screaming chicken little as though the sky were falling. People are calling into radio stations, writing all over the internet. Patriot fans are scared and confused – how can this happen? Next year might already be a lost cause. Now, no one can enjoy the Super Bowl and the miraculous ending with the interception on the 1 yard line. Worry and doom are hanging in the air.
But I tell you, I’m thinking, wait a minute. Do you remember back in the beginning of the last season, when the Patriots let go one of the best offensive linemen and then badly lost their second game out of 4, and Tom Brady looked really bad on the field, do you remember when everyone was starting to talk about the end of Tom Brady’s time with the Patriots, how he might be let go or traded, and how the team really was no good? Well, they weren’t panicking, and all they did was almost miraculously win almost every other game they played and then win the Super Bowl.
Or do you remember when they let another one of their best defensive players go a few years earlier, and everyone thought they couldn’t win anything anymore, and then they made it to just one game before the Super Bowl? Or the time the same thing happened with their best receiver, and then they made it again to the game before the Super Bowl? The Patriots have won so much and so consistently over the past 14 years that it is almost miraculous, the best in the history of the sport, that they have a laundry list of jealous people who hate them. Why can’t Patriots fans relax and appreciate the most amazing stretch of football seasons in the whole history of the sport?
How much do we need to experience before we trust in the Patriot Way?
But that’s how we are.
It takes a lot to earn people’s faith.
At one point in the Gospel, Jesus gets into a boat with his disciples, and he starts to talk to them about spiritual things. But they are worry-warts and doom-and-gloom, and they can’t get beyond the lack of provisions in the boat. “Leaven, you say? We don’t have any bread. What are we going to do about bread?” And Jesus can’t believe it. Because, he just performed a miracle feeding 4,000 people. “Why do you discuss the fact that you have no bread? Do you not yet perceive or understand? Are your hearts hardened? Having eyes do you not see, and having ears do you not hear? And do you not remember? When I broke the five loaves for the five thousand, how many baskets full of broken pieces did you take up?” They said to him, “Twelve.” “And the seven for the four thousand, how many baskets full of broken pieces did you take up?” And they said to him, “Seven.” And he said to them, “Do you not yet understand?” (Mk 8:17-21)
If you want to do something for Jesus, you know what I think the best thing is that you can do? I think it’s to have faith in him. Have confidence in him. Whatever the new needs and predicaments are that show up on the horizon, remember his miracles, all that he’s done in your life. Because when he’s earned your faith, all his hard work is worth it.
Relax, enjoy the blessings. When you are with Jesus, there is nothing to worry about.
Trust in the Way.
ALM 