Life Is Like Football Or Seasons; It Doesn’t Have To Be Meaningless
Word-Of-The-Day: ‘There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens.’ (Ecclesiastes 3:1)
Solomon wrote Ecclesiastes in the latter part of his life. Being the wisest man to live, with God granting him profound wisdom (1 Kings 3:1-15), Solomon at first lived to honor God and rule in a fashion obedient to Him. Later, he married women of other cultures and began to worship their false gods and idols, which wasn’t so wise in my humble opinion.
After God rebuked Solomon, telling Solomon his son Rehoboam, who would become king after Solomon’s death, would have ten of the twelve tribes removed from David’s lineage by Jeroboam (which split the kingdom in two, Israel (the ten separated tribes) and Judah (Judah and Benjamin) in 1 Kings 11 & 12, it is thought this is when Solomon may have written Ecclesiastes.
Ecclesiastes is known for all the statements of life being ‘meaningless’, or without God there is no purpose in life. But Ecclesiastes 3 is best remembered as the Byrds’ hit single from 1965, ‘Turn, Turn, Turn’. The theme of this chapter is primarily talking of similarities we all encounter in life; ‘there is a time for…’, then Solomon provides about every situation we encounter in life: birth and death, planting and harvesting, war and peace, sadness and happiness, and other dichotomies paired together.
We all have seasons in our lives; the season for Labor Day, which is coming up, having a special meaning for me has long gone. I believe part of that is for most Labor Days as a child, after coming in from running around outside on final time before the start of a new school year the next day, as the end of the Jerry Lewis Telethon would be airing, and the final acts would come on, the ‘timpani’ would sound, and the final amount collected would be displayed.
Labor Day marked the end of summer and the beginning of the drudgery of going to school. After my school days ended, Labor Day was a day off from work, sometimes with a cookout but usually a day of catching up on chores – in Florida that means completing any last-minute hurricane preparations. Being retired, it’s another great summer day.
Some holidays still have meaning for me in a patriotic (‘MURICA!) sense (Memorial Day, Independence Day, Veteran’s Day) and others in a religious sense (Easter, Thanksgiving). Some have lost their luster due to time, commercialism, or not-so-good memories. Christmas is unfortunately the holiday that falls into that category, although the celebration of Jesus’ birth is something I try to hang onto to salvage the holiday for me.
One thing that Solomon, unfortunately, did not know is the game of American football. (Archeologists have not uncovered any goalposts or mascot costumes from ancient Israel, at least not yet.) Being football is upon us, my theory that Ecclesiastes 3, and life, can be compared to a football game; there are roughly 4 quarters: 1st Quarter (Birth-20 years old); 2nd Quarter (21-40); 3rd Quarter (41-60); 4th Quarter (61-80). (Anything past 80 is ‘overtime’.)
If one is not into football, one could also translate these ‘Quarters’ as Seasons, namely Spring, Summer, Fall, and Winter. (If one is over the age of 80, it just means you have an extended Winter, and sounds a bit more palatable than ‘overtime’. Your mileage may vary.)
The 1st Quarter or Spring is when the game begins and will often dictate how the rest of the game will be played – but things can and will change. We’re born, we go to school, and many of our first-time experiences are during this time. After we graduate high school or soon thereafter, the 2nd Quarter or Summer begins; we typically are out on our own, later in this time most people marry and have children. We make adjustments and changes, settle into a career, and set upon a strategy to complete the game.
About the time the ‘mid-life crisis’ hits, the 3rd Quarter or Fall starts as we realize we’re not getting any younger; for most of us, we strive in following and implementing the strategy that will carry us toward the end of our careers and into retirement. Our children, for most of us, are starting their ‘Summer’, graduating high school and going off on their own, to college or starting their career.
Prayerfully, we find we’ve been successful in the secular sense, and we can cruise into the 4th Quarter or Winter, where we are free to retire, open up the game plan to what we enjoy all the way through to the end of the game (which may extend into overtime if we are so fortunate).
By the ‘2nd half’ of life, there are things that occurred or were set up in the ‘1st half’ that have gone by the wayside and are no longer relevant or can be applied, although we need to remember these things so as either not to repeat them (if unsuccessful) or to try to modify to make them relevant again, perhaps in a different scenario.
Like a football game, there are many things that can go awry. We miss opportunities – often due to our own mistakes (fumbling the football, so to speak), sometimes due to opposition stopping our momentum. Our game plans don’t always go the way we want them to – circumstances change, new players enter the game, we get injured or a sudden storm makes footing sluggish or slippery.
Nevertheless, we must always go forward and try to score. In life, we sometimes must settle for the field goal instead of the touchdown. We sometimes get tackled for a loss, but we must not lose sight of our goal.
In life, like a football game, it’s always better to play under the lights and even better, in a domed stadium. In the game of life, we need to seek Jesus, who will provide the Light (John 14:6), and who will shield and cover us like a domed roof (Proverbs 18:10). As we play the game of life, we need to put on the proper padding God provides to protect us (Ephesians 6:13-17).
While we still have opposition, and we can still fumble the football, the game is a lot better being played under the lights and under a roof and with the proper protective equipment, and we greatly improve our conditioning in order to win the game!
As stated previously, using the seasons analogy, and Solomon’s writings of Ecclesiastes 1 and 2, without God life is meaningless. You have the seasons of life, or the game of life, but after Winter sets in, or after the 4th Quarter is played, what remains?
Without God, it’s ‘game over’. But with God and with the passage of Winter, when the final whistle that ‘ends the game’ is blown, the Believer – the Child of Christ – finds a new game begins, that life springs anew – an endless Spring of renewal in the presence of Jesus for all Eternity. This is a game without ending, a Springtime that continues anew every moment with Jesus. This new life is not meaningless, but meaningful in Eternal Glory in the light of God!
Use the Bible as your playbook, seek God to be your Head Coach, and have Jesus be both your Quarterback and your Defense, as well as the dome covering you. With God on our team, Victory is assured!
