Does Your Team Have Depth?

I love watching football highlights. I'm not supposed to admit that, I know. It's a bit of a betrayal to women everywhere who loathe this season for the temporary widowhood it imposes.

This time of year I've been known to read the sports section first, to spout red zone statistics to anyone who will listen, and to wear a radio headset to the stadium in full defiance of game day fashion. My husband recently fell in love with me all over again when I asked for a football highlights compilation for my birthday.

I wasn't always this way. My best friend in graduate school was a mystery to me, studying in sports bars with books piled to her eyebrows. She was a hit with men at parties, but women hated her ability to gain entrance into this strange masculine world and actually enjoy it. We dismissed her as a genetic freak.

Now I've joined her ranks. My favorite plays are those that defy all logic. I especially marvel at the ones where multiple players touch the ball in a single down. The fumble that shoots out of the running back's grasp into the unwitting hands of a teammate who stumbles, flinging the ball into the air, where it's pulled in by a player who's running beside him. These plays could scarcely be choreographed with more perfection, yet happen with surprising regularity.

Last season my favorite team pulled out a squeaker when a walk-on kicker put away his first ever college field goal in the final seconds of the game. It was the first time he'd stepped foot onto a college field, yet he somehow managed to keep himself mentally prepared should his team need him. I admire that attitude, especially since I'm not sure I could be so humble.

I've often wondered about the players who suit up game after game only to watch from the sidelines. Surely their egos take a beating each week. Everyone knows that a strong team needs depth at each position and that every player serves a function, but will anyone remember those minor players' names? Could I respect myself as a third stringer? Perhaps more importantly, if I were the star quarterback of the team, would I treat those players with the same dignity as my star receivers?

It's human nature to pay attention to rank, position, and relative importance of those around us. "Where do I fit in?" and "How important am I?" are questions we all carry in our hearts. The truth is, we are more vital and effective playing on a team with depth. I'd much rather be a star quarterback or a game-winning kicker. Yet the Bible's teaching on the importance of working together as the body of Christ reminds me to be humble and grateful. After all, I don't learn as much about teamwork bathed in the limelight of my own accomplishments. I learn it when I fumble the ball and watch with relief as my teammate takes it down the field for me.

For by the grace given me I say to everyone one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the measure of faith God has given you. Just as each of us have one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function so in Christ we who are many form one body, and each member belongs to the other. We have different gifts, according the grace given us.

(Romans 12:3-6)