My team didn’t win the Super Bowl, but we gained a valuable lesson from their loss. It takes a team to win a championship. Teams matter.
Brady’s wife, Gisele Bundchen, actually made the point during a post-game comment to a reporter. She defended Tom and blamed the receivers for not catching some of his passes, particularly during the critical last minutes of the game. (If you weren’t among the 111 million people watching, the score was 17-15 Patriots until a late touchdown by New York which won the game.) Wes Welker, who always (well, almost always) catches the ball, and another receiver, missed two Brady “bullets” which some think would have enabled New England to score or at least run out the clock.
Enough about football. My point in bringing this up is to emphasize the underlying point of Gisele’s comment. (Let me say before I leave Bundchen’s comment, that Brady owns his share of the blame for the loss, including his contributing to a safety being called in their first possession which put the Patriots behind right from the start.) In pointing to the receivers’ lapses, Gisele reminds us that it takes more than a great quarterback to win a game, it takes a team. Every member of the team is important; they all must excel in their role. It really doesn’t matter if its sports, business, the military, medicine or ministry.
Every Christ-follower is given a role in the Body of Christ and the Holy Spirit works within that individual to enable them to fulfill the responsibility given them by God. It is not our responsibility as believers to “catch the ball” every time, but it is our duty to strenuously prepare ourselves for the task and give 100% in fulfilling our part. To put it differently, it’s not our responsibility to be “successful,” but we must be faithful. God holds us accountable for our faithfulness.
Next time your team tosses you the ball, please, don’t drop it.
(I hope you will join me each week for my 15-minute Bible study about faith at work in daily life at www.FaithNowMinistries.com/broadcasts, where you may also sign-up to receive my weekly blogs.)
