With soccer / football fever having hit South Africa, and having enjoyed the incredibly tense opening FIFA World Cup match last week between South Africa / Bafana Bafana and Mexico, the thought occured to me: can God enjoy the soccer?
Why this thought? Well, the thing about sports is that there are so many unknowns. This is part of what makes sport so exhilarating — almost anything can happen. Will the other team score an equaliser goal? Will my team be able to keep ahead? If only the ball swayed a little to the left, that would be a goal… and so on.
If God knows everything about the future, though, can He enjoy the soccer? Can He enjoy sport?
Someone might say it’s a little carnal asking if God can enjoy sport, but many times us Christians claim God enjoys our music and our creativity. I don’t think it’s a stretch to say He could enjoy sport, after all it’s also a creative act; so perhaps He does.
But can He really if He knows everything? What if God chooses to forget the future during a match, just so He can enjoy not knowing what’s going to happen? Is that possible? And what does that mean when we think of God’s foreknowledge of other things? Is there any place in the Bible where it seems God might not know, absolutely know, what’s going to happen or what choices people will make? Hmmm…
Life-Ecstatic 
God enjoys being glorified by us out of our free will. See: http://shortstoriesbydavid.files.wordpress.com/2010/06/the-love_0001.jpg
When a team huddles and prayers that God will guide their gifts to his glory, when he is glorified at goal time or at the victory, When players bless themselves and seek God’s blessing wrt their safety and are submissive to his power.
Hope that is helpful
Blessings
Merry Helper
MH
I once argued that sport is close to God’s heart and recently blogged on that theme. I do feel character building, teamwork and national spirit are close to God’s heart, but professionalism, politics and the other nasties of modern sport … hmmm.
Brother Ryan
You said:
I do feel character building, teamwork and national spirit are close to God’s heart,
Where in Scripture do you find these?
I recall Jaco vd Westhuisen twice wearing Jesus related tshirts, this created tons talk on the blogsphere.
Blessings
MH
Hey Merry Helper,
The last post was from Peter, not from me 🙂
Hi Ryan
Sorry bout the mixup and my lazy reading, I feel a bit of an idiot hopefully u can see why.
Blessings
MH
lol, no man no problem 🙂 It’s happened quite often, since my second name is Peter 🙂
Interesting post! I like the thought.