The late days of August, the heat of summer and football practice means thirsty players. A long time ago, in what seems like another dimension, football coaches would only let us have so many water breaks. We had a single solitary garden hose attached to an outside faucet to get drinks of water. This was in the days before sports drinks were available for purchase. Nobody had even heard the term sports drink.

One hot afternoon at practice, the trainers mixed up this concoction in a 30 gallon galvanized trash can. (The trainers told us after practice what they put in the trash can.) A full box of lemon-lime Kool-aid, a large sack of sugar, several pounds of salt, several bags of ice and they filled the can with water from that garden hose and then stirred it with a wooden stick that looked like a broom handle.

We saw the trainers doing this as we practiced. Everyone was looking over and watching them wondering, “What are they doing?” We also wondered, what was coach up to, because he was always coming up with something new to try on us.

When water break time came the senior linemen were always the first guys in line. The trainers were handing out paper cups and telling everyone to get one cupful and then to step back to let someone else step up for a cupful. Well those senior linemen dipped one cupful and drank it and dipped in for another. All of a sudden it was a drinking frenzy. The guys loved the taste and were just going crazy trying to get more with different players crowding in to get their first cupful.

By the time the sophomores got to the trash can it was close to being empty. There was also grass clippings and dirt in the drink. We were so thirsty we didn’t care what was in it because it was wet and we wanted some. I dipped my cup in and drank it and never had I tasted anything so good in my entire life, up to that moment, on a blazing hot day in the summer.

Man was created by God for God. But all of us at times choose to live our lives independently of God. We choose to fill our cup with everything possible except God. So we continue to be thirsty and unsatisfied with everything on this earth.

Jesus said in John 4:14 but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.

John 4:4-26

You have seen this player listed on the scouting report, he is 5’8” 150 pounds. You have watched film and the kid seems to be everywhere on the football field at the right place at the right time.

Over the years you have seen this kind of player on other teams. They have played in multiple positions, lineman, linebacker, cornerback, quarterback and you marvel at how does he do what he does? He gets away from blockers to make tackles. He outruns everyone to make a tackle, which seems impossible. He makes plays at quarterback or running back that you ask yourself, “Did he really just do that?”

When football coaches look at students walking down the street or hallways of the school they think, that kid looks like a linebacker or fullback or tight end etc. But when the coach looks at our, how does he do it football player, he doesn’t look like a football player, some of the time. We can underestimate what is on the inside of our young football players and it is a mystery.

The same is true of our Christian faith. You can have an individual, that does everything wrong in all areas of his life. They are the total screw up in our communities and always in trouble. Then one day they are introduced to Jesus and everything changes. They are the same when we look at them on the outside, but on the inside they are different. It is the mystery of faith and we wonder how did that happen?

Never underestimate God the Father Almighty and think again about that kid that doesn’t look like much of a football player.

1 Timothy 3:16 And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory.