Encouraging oneself in the Lord

One day recently, I came across a couple pertinent points of reflection, both of which I’ve been aware of and even (you might say) meditated on.

The first was a YouTube video I came across from a guy who I’d never watched before talking about the importance of encouraging oneself in the Lord, like King David did:

Now David was greatly distressed, for the people spoke of stoning him, because the soul of all the people was grieved, every man for his sons and his daughters. But David strengthened himself in the Lord his God. 1 Samuel 30:6, NIV

My pastor at my church occasionally preaches about this, citing the same example, and so to hear it repeated from a different voice in the same general season, has led me to write a reflection in this vein.

The second came while watching highlight-reel videos from the Chicago Bulls’ dynasty years, specifically involving Dennis Rodman and either Michael Jordan or Scottie Pippen. I’d been reading/watching up a lot more on the backstories about how the Bulls got Rodman, and how, due to numerous factors, it was quite a miracle 1.) that Rodman was on the team, and 2.) that he got along with the Bulls’ two superstars.

Then I reflected on the timing of these things, and that’s when it hit me: God using sports as a (mostly) clean way to accomplish two things: 1.) distract my mind from the pain my life already was at that point, and 2.) a way to show me that even then He cared and was paying attention to my trials that at that time seemed to be never-ending.

I didn’t pay attention to the Bulls’ first three championships in the early 90s. I was kinda too young. I think at some point I was vaguely aware that they were good, but I wasn’t really aware the depth of their greatness until after Jordan’s first retirement. Hence my understanding of: “the Bulls were good, but their best guy isn’t playing for them anymore.”

Then, the year I went off to New York for boarding school, not only were the Bulls still winning, but then the New York Yankees started winning championships almost the entire time I was living there, after a bit of a championship drought. They only stopped winning a year after I had graduated and moved back. At the time, I didn’t understand. I had fallen into the majority camp where the sentiment was fatigue and disgust at how “the Yankees always keep winning.”

The year I moved back to Chicago from Minnesota, the Chicago Blackhawks won their first Stanley Cup title, and won twice more over the next five years. This was a move where, due to varying circumstances, I had to completely surrender the idea of a happy and successful life in Minnesota, where I really had wanted to be when I graduated college. At the time, moving back to Chicago was not at all my picture of where I expected to spend my adulthood. And, I saw in so many ways how God moved, including a new church I joined at that time, friends I made, and other things. But the Blackhawks suddenly going from laughingstock to multi-time champions I believe was another sign of God using sports as a way to show me He cared.

There were also other ways that, looking back, I noticed how God was using sports to show me He cared for me. One such way was through video games. I don’t consider myself a “gamer” in the sense that so many people my generation and younger are or were, but for about a decade I got heavily involved in playing Nintendo (N64) basketball or baseball. During those years, especially high school, my life (when I was in the Chicago area) was basically: school, church, hanging out with my one best friend occasionally, and my video games. However, there were times when I would do something in my video game, and it would somehow prove prophetic. I played baseball more in the earlier years of my video game obsession, basketball more in the latter years. Sometime in my first couple years, I had set up a Yankees-Mets World Series matchup. I think I had the Yankees winning in five games, although I forget how and in what order the results came.

Lo, and behold, the 2000 World Series played out exactly like that.

In high school and/or college, in one simulation, I had myself as a superstar (via the “created player” feature) winning championships on the Miami Heat, and later on with the Golden State Warriors.

The 2010s played out this sequence, with the Heat winning championships for a few years first, followed by the Warriors for a few more years.

Even in my writing, I wrote a couple interesting stories (one of which made this blog) where I correctly predicted most (although not all) aspects of two World Series/playoff runs. In 2005, I wrote a doomsday sort of story where a few folks and I ran off to Canada to escape impending nuclear war, bemoaning that this sort of thing had to happen shortly after the Chicago Cubs finally broke their World Series drought and won the championship. What was interesting was how I detailed how they would win: against the Texas Rangers, and in 5 games, in which the Cubs had home-field advantage and clinched on the road in Texas to end their championship drought. I ended up getting only two details wrong: the year, and the victor. This was basically how the San Francisco Giants broke their lengthy championship drought, in 2010.

Finally, in this post here, and kind of in a place where I was flat-out frustrated with my writing (the point that I stopped completely, until only recently), I cobbled together one last attempt (half-baked, to be honest) about the Cubs finally winning the World Series. To be fair, this was after the team had hired Theo Epstein to be the team architect, so the idea of them winning (curses and all) actually had a possibility of succeeding. I predicted again that the Cubs would win, this time at home, in 2016, on (pick a random date on the calendar) Saturday, October 22^nd, sometime shortly after 9:41 PM.

What blows my mind is that was the night (and almost exactly the time) that they won the pennant at Wrigley Field, breaking the pennant drought. They would go on to win the World Series a week-and-a-half later, still one of the most surreal moments of my life. The Cubs in a World Series!?? What’s going on??

The point of sharing these things is that I look back now and see how God was using these moments to communicate to me that He was there for me and cared about my prayer requests. I had many. I still have many, but I now am able to see more of how God is moving. He cares for His children. While I will add the disclaimer that my experiences tying sports and faith together should not be a one-size-fits-all, I do believe God does give some of us prophetic gifts. At the Vineyard I often listened to Holy Spirit for anything – words, images, etc – while praying for other people. I wasn’t always right in my discernment, but I have enough experiences to know that God does give some people the gift of prophecy, and that He does use people with this gift to speak truth and life into others.

As a parallel to encouraging yourself in the Lord, sometimes just remembering Him and the cool stuff He has done for you in your life is enough to do the trick. What about for you? What is an area in your life that you’ve seen God move to show you that He is there and always will be?