Walk Strong

God is not a football coach, although one might get that impression from the way many of us interact with him.  When things are going well, when life is good, people generally don’t have much trouble thanking him for the good stuff.  We don’t have trouble showing up to the game on the weekends, or at least tuning in.  We wear the colors, the jerseys, sing the fight songs, and life is cool.

After all, everyone loves a winner, right?

But, then again, life isn’t always a winner.

Sometimes life is bad.  For some people, life is bad most of the time.  Like our favorite team struggling through a losing streak, we begin to ask the all too familiar questions:  “How could this happen?  Why did he throw that pass?  What’s up with the defense?  Who in the world is even calling these plays?”

When many of us turn on the news or open up the paper, the questions continue.  “If God is supposed to be so powerful and so good at his job, then why did this happen over there?  Why did that happen last week?  Why did that person have to die like that, and why are we even here in the first place?”

Some of us, though, depending on our temperament, have a much more detached perspective.  God becomes not just a football coach.  He becomes the football coach, an NFL hall-of-fame inductee with a Super Bowl ring on each digit and a few left over for his feet.  He’s the big guy upstairs, the clock maker and what not, and, as such, why would he want anything to do with little old us?  Why would he be at all concerned with what we have to say, or think, or do?

He’s big and famous, after all.  Everyone knows his name.  We’re just fans, and, to be honest, we’re not even very good fans at that.  Surely an all knowing, all powerful God is not concerned with the minutia of our daily lives.  Surely he has much, much bigger things to worry about.

Right?

Occasionally, thankfully, we meet people who remind us that God is not a football coach.  Steve Wescott, for example, knows good and well that God is not a football coach, and he has the miles to prove it.

By now, many of you know who Steve Wescott is.  Perhaps you were fortunate enough to meet this young man, as I did this past week, or perhaps you read about him in the paper, listened to him on the radio, or caught some of his insight through social media.  For those unaware, Steve, along with his sidekick goat, Leroy Brown, is walking across the United States of America, and they both spent a good chunk of the past week in Effingham County.  He has been walking across this country for over two years now, all in an effort to help people he may never meet.

Officially he is walking to raise money.  Steve and Leroy walk from town to town, often quite slowly, to seek support for the construction of an orphanage in Nairobi, Kenya.  That, though, is only part of it.  Another part of it, and perhaps, in the long run, the more important part, is that Steve is helping to call out the lie that runs so rampant in our society, that God is no longer interested.

Because, let’s be honest.  Many of us seem to believe in a God that is distant, aloof, and a bit suspicious.  We treat God like a celebrity, but not one that would dare be interested in how we spend our day.  As mentioned, we often treat God like he’s on the sidelines, barking orders to a world in which we are merely spectators.

This is nonsense, though, because God, the creator of plants and animals, the power that can fling galaxies through existence while simultaneously creating life within a million human wombs, has a lot more resources at his disposal than headphones, a clipboard, and a three ring binder full of plays.

            Steve Wescott knows that, and he is certainly not a spectator.  According to his website, needle2square.com, God called to Steve in a very specific way about two years ago through his own spiritual inclination and the transpiring of events half a world away.  Steve has now been following that call for thousands of miles. 

Granted, some might smirk and dismiss this “calling” as merely a gut feeling combined with coincidence, but try telling that to the Kenyans who will someday be able to grow their own food.  Try telling that to his nearly ten thousand Facebook fans who believe in what he is doing, and who are rooting for him along the way.

A few of us waited for Steve Thursday morning outside Effingham High School, anxious to meet the man who had trekked halfway across a continent with little more than a goat and a mission.  Around 7:35 we spotted him, walking slowly through the rain like some kind of Old Testament prophet.  He greeted us with a tremendous smile and a handshake, and before long he and Leroy were in front of the camera, talking the talk.

Soon the bell rang.  We all went to class.  Steve and his sidekick stepped back out into the weather, toward the radio station and onto the next leg of their mission.  He stepped off of the sidelines and back into the mix.