When Your Head is Full of Football*
There’s a new commercial making its’ round on TV.
In it, sports commentator Skip Bayless is speaking at a funeral for a supposed friend whose passed away. When it’s time for him to step up to the podium and share some words of comfort or remembrance, all he can talk about is football. Instead of entering into the grief of life lost, he can only speak of the grief of his beloved Raiders choking against another team in the league.
The commercial wraps up with awkward claps and the following headline.
When your brain is full of sports, there isn’t room for much else.
Funny? Yes.
True? Absolutely.
It doesn’t matter if it’s our favorite team, financial concerns, family disputes, or projects at work.
When our minds are flooded with other things, we don’t have room for anything else.
Love.
Grief.
Empathy.
Or most importantly, the Kingdom of God.
The most human things about us, take a back seat. We can’t focus on those around us because our brains lack the bandwidth.
I think Jesus knew this when he exhorted his disciples to “seek first the kingdom of God” (Matthew 6:33).
He intuitively knew the same thing Skip Bayless does.
When your brain is so full of sports, there isn’t room for much else.
One of the most pressing priorities for disciples of Jesus is to carve out and prioritize time with him. To let him speak the first word in our brains before everything else starts vying for real estate.
As I first wrote in this newsletter, years ago, you are what you abide in.
Be sure to abide in Jesus before the rest of the world starts claiming territory.
When your brain is so full of sports, there isn’t room for much else.
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