Ordinary Days #26: McLane Stadium

 Athletes compete

   to win the prize. (1Cor 9:24)

Dear Priscilla,

The hand-off is complete. Mom and Dad are heading home without you. They sent me a picture of you at the door of your dorm: “Ruth Collins Hall”—your new home. They tell me it’s part of the old campus, a big old six story brick building.

I woke up in the middle of the night wondering how far away you were from McLane Stadium where you run the lines and cheer on the Baylor Bears Football team. I managed a Baylor Campus Map download. It looks like the stadium is on the other side of the river, maybe about a mile or less walk from your dorm?

That caused me to download the football schedule. I see your first game is against Texas State—your sister’s school. You can’t walk to that one. It’s an away game. Your first home game is against Texas Southern on September 11. You’ll have to tell me all about your walk across campus and about “running the lines” and what it’s like to go to a big time college football game.

Why should such trivial things as college football keep me up all night? Maybe it’s because I never experienced such a thing, and am a bit envious of my friends who wear their Cal or Stanford sweatshirts on game day. On game day, I just pretend like I went to Cal; whereas, you really are going to a big time football college. You’ll be able to wear your colors for real.

The Apostle Paul admired those athletes who competed in the Isthmian games, just down the road form his church in Corinth—like walking to McLane Stadium. “The runners all compete to win the prize,” the Apostle noticed, and encourages us to notice. “Athletes exercise self-control in all things to receive a perishable wreath. … So I dare not run aimlessly less the gospel I proclaim be discredited” (1Cor 9:24-27). We do not have to win anything to be a Christian—we are saved by God’s grace as is. But once we enter the Kingdom of God; a certain gracious competition is in order. You are an athlete. You’ve learned to compete gracefully and with grace—beautiful.

Love Papa