Skip to main content

Stevie Johnson let God down....didn't he?

------------------------------------------------

There's lots of talk about Stevie Johnson, the Bills wideout who dropped the game-winning touchdown and then, after the game, tweeted:

I PRAISE YOU 24/7!!!!!! AND THIS HOW YOU DO ME!!!!! YOU EXPECT ME TO LEARN FROM THIS??? HOW???!!! ILL NEVER FORGET THIS!! EVER!!! THX THO…

I feel bad for the guy. He’s getting mocked across the nation, and some of the criticisms are along the lines of “it’s just a game.” Such criticisms are very ignorant. Catching a ball is what this guy was hired to do. It’s his living. I get upset when things I try to do at my job don’t go well. Doesn’t matter if your job is a plumber, programmer, pastor, doctor, or athlete.

In the case of an athlete, a failure on the job is witnessed by millions of people. To this day, athletes like Leon Lett, Bill Buckner, and Robin Ventura, who should be known for having great careers, are instead known for one bad moment. They’re regarded as failures despite being better at what they do that 99.9% of people who judge their performance and assess their worthiness.

My hope for Johnson is that he will have a game where he does something really well, and alters the way people think about him. And my other hope is that he will see God as He really is.

I have never received a dime for playing sports, but have felt his same frustration when my softball team, or the kids’ baseball team that I coach, has had a heartbreaking loss, a dropped ball, or missed opportunity. In fact, I’ve had it outside of sports, as well. This isn't about money; it's about a guy who had thoughts like we all do, only his went public.

Note: much of this blog post originated in comments I posted on Karen Spears Zacharias' excellent post at http://bit.ly/hdGrSA

Comments

Joshua Rogers said…
I like the new look. Regarding your statement that, "This man’s frustration happens to be public because he plays football." I think it's more accurate to say that this man's frustration happens to be public because he foolishly tweeted it.
November 30, 2010 at 1:25 PM
James said…
Josh what I mean is, if my servers go down (I'm an IT manager) and I shout out something about God not coming through for me, a few people might hear me and let me know what they think about it. What this guy did is no different. Just as foolish, but not more foolish.
November 30, 2010 at 2:14 PM
Joshua Rogers said…
I hear you, and it's a good point.
December 1, 2010 at 2:38 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Saying goodbye to one set of twins, and hello to another

"It's been ten whole years already? Wow! Hard to believe." Many a father will say something like that while shaking his head in disbelief, when his oldest approaches the 10th birthday. It's a milestone, not just for the kid, but for the parents. It's a head-shaker because I am reminded that on that day, 10 years ago, my life changed forever. In some ways, it has passed very quickly.  In other ways, it seems like it's been every bit of ten years. There are two distinct things, though, about the ten-year anniversary of my dadhood. The first is that I became a father of not one, but two little bundles of joy that Tuesday morning. Abby was born at 8:48, followed by her brother Jacob at 8:50. The second is that their birth marked some rare joy in the midst of the darkest day in our nation's history.  As my wife was in labor, a nurse came in and told us that an airplane had crashed into a skyscraper in New York. I turned on the labor room...
6 comments
Read more

Embarrassing video clip--John Cougar

I recently stumbled across some Youtube gold: a live performance by John Mellencamp when he was Johnny Cougar. He appears to be have been about 23, and he's singing "Ain't even Done With The Night", in front of a fairly unresponsive crowd with Bobby Bare (?!) in the front seat. Cougar/Mellencamp is dressed in a nerdy sweater and generally bears no resemblance to the singer as we knew him just 5 years later. He looks a lot more like Potsie from Happy Days than the guy who sang "Pink Houses". Certainly, there is no way to watch this and make a connection to the guy whose song "This is Our Country" beat us to death by overuse in pickup truck commercials. But the real entertainment value from this clip comes from the guys behind Cougar. In hot-pink tuxedos, there are 5 Pips-like backup dancers/singers who don't sing, but clap their hands real well. They essentially spend the entire song performing cheerleader dance routines not unlike those ...
14 comments
Read more

The Two Christmases

As I walked through the front door of the Post Office to make my stamp purchase, I was faced with a choice. On my left was a vending machine, and to my right was the customer service desk, where I could make the purchase from actual human beings. Because there was no line at the moment, I chose the human interaction. I strolled up to the middle-aged, slightly balding postal employee, read that his name was "Rex", and I asked for two books of stamps. As it was mid-December, Rex asked me "would you like Christmas stamps, or...". Once I realized he wasn't about to complete the sentence, I looked down and saw that he was holding some very un-Christmas-like stamps bearing images of the Liberty Bell and the word "Forever." Knowing that my wife had planned to mail several Christmas cards, I told him "One of each." To my surprise, the decision-making did not stop there. Rex hit me with a follow-up: he held up two types of stamps: one had a pi...
Post a Comment
Read more