Pointing Up, Make or Miss
I had a bit of a double-take moment watching the fourth quarter of the Super Bowl Sunday night. Colts kicker Matt Stover had just pushed a big 51-yard field goal a couple feet wide left, when the camera caught him turning and pointing both index fingers skyward in that “glory-to-God” motion that it seems you see all the time from athletes after a big play. My first thought was oh, man – he doesn’t realize he missed it. It was just then that announcer Jim Nantz explained “Matt Stover, a deeply spiritual man, does that every time – make or miss.”
In sports, like in all of life, it’s easy to acknnowledge God after a big victory. But praising God after missing a crucial field goal in a one-point game in the fourth quarter of the Super Bowl? That, you don’t see so often. Here’s what Stover had to say in a 2003 interview with Baptist Press…
“Through my career I have to first and foremost honor Him,” Stover said. “It’s not about me, it’s about Him. When I point up I’m giving thanks — not only when I get a field goal but also when I miss one. It’s life’s trials that make you grow the most, not the good times.”
That kind of attitude demonstrates a mature faith. Just ask Job, who came through unimaginable suffering only to remark about God, “I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear,but now my eye sees you.” The same God that is sovereign over our best moments is also firmly at the wheel when it seems the wheels have fallen off. He is deserving of our praise just the same in those moments, because we can trust his promise that he is working all things for our good. Matt Stover reminds himself of that reality by pointing to the sky in the triumphs and disappointments of his football career. Let his example be a reminder to you as well.
