National Champtions

DateLine (1/04/06 – Buies Creek, North Carolina)
Guest Writer for Reference Point this week - Tripp Atkins

Ahhh, college football. College football is a full time/year round job for some fans. The year starts out with following recruiting and determining which of the most talented high school seniors signing with their colleges of choice during the first week of February are coming to your favorite team. Then the college fan turns their focus to spring practice where the initial starters are selected for the fall squad – all of these practices culminating in the annual spring game. There is a little lull during the summer, but come the first week of August, the hype returns for the first weeks of practice before the regular season. September through November is a grind full of highs and lows, ups and downs, and thrill and agony.

The whole season is built to win at least six games and launch the football team into the best post-season bowl game possible – generally decided by the bowl payout to the school as well as the date of the bowl game. The lower tier bowl games occurring before Christmas while the better bowl games happen around New Years and later. All of the off-season work in the weight room, sweat, tears, and blood are fuel to take the teams through the regular season and into bowl season.

Tonight is the Rose Bowl game selected as this years BCS national championship game pitting the University of Southern California versus the University of Texas.

Christian life is somewhat like college football. It is definitely not easy, there are peaks and valleys, high hopes some days, and deep depression others. It takes hard work. Some times the most preparation and diligent work doesn’t lead us to victory, but when God is on our sideline victory is definite. In Luke when the apostles had been fishing all night and not caught anything, Jesus told them to pull the boats out into deeper waters and drop the nets. Even though they had been doing that all night with no luck, they persevered and did as Jesus directed, and they began to catch so many fish that they had to call other boats to help them bring it all in.

It has taken a lot of hard work for these two teams to make it to the national championship game tonight. Texas had to fight hard to pull out their victory over Texas A&M, and USC had a few scares during the season. Each team has had to overcome injury and other distractions to find their victories.

The devil distracts us, but we will overcome when we are backed up by God and His word. Psalm 60: 12 tells us that “With God we will gain the victory, and He will trample down our enemies.”