Christian Living

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Larry Lilly's Letter Thursday July 16, 2009

One thing is certain, the older I get the more I am aware of it. And the more aware I become of the wisdom of some old well worn saws. For years I was very athletic, and even at my age I still put my own socks on. Life is great. I was doing a little research and came across the following by the premier sports writer and gifted orator, Grantland Rice, whose opening phrase detailing a ball game on the previous Saturday still rings the bell, though it was written nearly 85 years ago. I will email a copy of the entire piece upon your request. Every aspiring writer/speaker should get it and burn it into memory:

"Outlined against a blue-gray October sky, the Four Horsemen rode again. In dramatic lore they are known as Famine, Pestilence, Destruction and Death. These are only aliases. Their real names are Stuhldreher, Miller, Crowley and Layden."

I met and became friends with Elmer Layden the son of the famous Notre Dame fullback. I mention this for no reason other than to drop his name.

Grantland Rice penned many memorable pieces but I think the most famous and most misunderstood is the following:

"For when the One Great Scorer comes to mark against your name, He writes -- not that you won or lost -- but how you played the Game." Too many take this line to mean that keeping score is not important, but having read up on Grantland Rice, I am convinced that is NOT what he meant at all.

With his upbringing and collegiate studies, Vanderbilt, Mr. Rice understood that one day we will stand before whom he called the One Great Scorer and give account. This account will not necessarily focus on the numbers but on the quality of how. Paul deals with the motivation in 1Corinthians 3:12-15. While the sports world is out of kilter due to the revelation of star athletes using performance enhancing drugs, those of us in other fields must accept the fact that God will not permit "pseudo fruit" to endure at the coming great evaluation day for His children.

Most of us know or have known the "peacock" athlete, who looks great in uniform, appears to be well conditioned and when the team wins the trophy somehow gets his photo in the paper. The well known secret that he/she is a jerk who never makes practice, would faint if he took a truly hard hit has no value when scholarships are handed out. And sadly some very great athletes will not make the Hall of Fame in their particular sport due to their drug induced attempts to appear greater than they are.

On that coming day when Christ evaluates "What sort" of stuff your life is built upon will you make the cut? Are you for real? He knows and you know. The rest of us wonder?

Larry Lilly Copyright © 2009 Use with credit

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