Hitting the Spot

   (Drawing by Julianna Kunstler) 

I have never been much of a sports fan. There was only one year when I felt excitement over a game. My mother, the daughter of a football player, grew up rooting for teams and taking part in cheer. At some point she began watching basketball on tv with my brother and I. We began to yell at the square screen, calling out players by name, waving pom poms in our team's royal purple. Our living room became the stadium seating where we watched men move with an agility our bodies could never achieve. 

I'm not sure what happened that year. I'm not sure why I began to feel an enthusiasm that dissipated so soon after.

Every day after lunch I spend two hours overseeing recess for third, fourth, and fifth graders. I pace the blacktop for two hours, making sure balls hit walls and hoops rather than bodies, and mediating when anger flares up. One day a PE teacher stuck around the blacktop with the kids, dribbling and shooting hoops. A few boys were shooting with him, in awe at the way his target seemed to draw the ball in like a magnet. He began to model and explain, correcting when their efforts continued to veer to one side like a twisted grocery cart wheel. Suddenly, every failed release of the ball became the tension of the story, and the coach's effortless ability to consistently make it through the net felt like he had learned the resolution of it all. When he made a shot, everything happened the way it was meant to. He had learned the secret. He could meet the standard, and watching it happen again and again gave you the satisfaction of hitting the spot.

I began to get a glimpse of the beauty of sports that day. There is a pleasure in applying yourself to a form and pattern, and learning how to emulate it with precision. I think this is a good gift from God. But without throwing away or diminishing the goodness of this gift, I've also begun to feel the ways my sinful heart can turn small standards into ultimate Standards. We all fall short of the glory of God, and we all try to fulfill the glory of lesser things.

In the midst of a busy schedule, it's tempting for me to reduce my life to meeting concrete standards of success. Jesus said not to worry about what we wear or eat, but sometimes it feels easier to worry about what I'm going to eat next week than how I can spend more time in devotions before work. Eating Whole 30 is easier to complete than killing sin. We lower the Standard required for us when we blow up the rules required for small things.

There's an unhealthy satisfaction in biting off something small enough to chew for the sake of feeling in control of something. There are two common ways we try to achieve sovereignty in our lives: we either climb up ladders or try to shrink the world down to a size that makes us stand tall over it. I am one who shrinks down the world, but perhaps you are the ladder-climbing kind. Either way, both ladders and worlds collapse on us eventually. We are shown to be declawed and noodle-limbed, branches that can indeed do nothing apart from the Vine. His glory is far greater than the flowers of the fields. We can be weak, throwing balls that refuse to be centered, and walk in a way that pleases God. His law is higher than any we can create, but His sacrifice is also more complete than any we could afford.