Game Changer

Like many Americans, I spent some time watching football games yesterday.  Perhaps you did too.  The game I paid most attention to was the Outback Bowl where my favorite team, the South Carolina Gamecocks, went up against the Michigan Wolverines.

There was one play in that game that is being credited by many sports analysts and fans as a game changer.  If you saw the game, you will remember the tackle by South Carolina's Jadeveon Clowney.  The play when the Michigan player lost his helmet, lost the football, and Clowney recovered the fumble.  South Carolina went on to win the game, and Clowney's tackle is being replayed over and over as "the play" that made the difference.

However, in my opinion, it was the previous play that was the game changer.  The play where Michigan was given a first down, even though the football clearly had not been advanced far enough for them to have earned a first down.  South Carolina had played very well in the first half of the game, but after halftime it seemed as though they had fallen asleep.  As though they weren't completely in the game.  And then the call was made......first down, Michigan.  That call really fired up the Gamecocks!  And the very next play was when Clowney made his now-famous tackle.  So, the referee's bad call was a game changer for South Carolina.

I was thinking about that this morning as I was hearing news reports and reading posts about the actions of the Congress to avert the so-called fiscal cliff.  Once again, at the last minute, they made a decision.  And a decision that seems to satisfy hardly anyone.  It seems that, once again, they have made a decision without finding a solution, as I heard it described a few days ago.  And that leaves me wondering just how much of this nonsense Americans are going to continue to tolerate.  How much longer we will go through life half asleep.  How much longer until elected officials, and those who elect them, will say "enough"!  What will be the "game changer"? What will it take?

As we enter a new year, as we're making our resolutions and setting our goals, perhaps it's time to think about a "game changer" in our personal lives as well.  As we evaluate the last year, and as we look forward to this new year, what changes need to take place? 

What habits do we need to change?

What relationships need to change?

What attitudes need to change?

What needs to change in your life and in mine so that our "game" is what it needs to be?  So that we can "run with endurance the race that is set before us"? (See Hebrews 12:1)

Something to think about.

"On the other hand, discipline yourself for the purpose of godliness; for bodily discipline is only of little profit, but godliness is profitable for all things, since it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come."  (1 Timothy 4:7b-8 NASB)