Football.

While in Austin to speak to at a Fellowship Christian Athletes event, Lindsay and I got to watch her Dad’s high school football team’s last game. They, Austin Anderson, had trailed the entire game since fumbling on the game's first series. With less than two minutes remaining in the forth quarter, they rallied back from a 15-point deficit to tie up the score at thirty-two. Their opponents drove the ball down the field to around the Anderson thirty, where they lined up to attempt a game winning 45+yrd field goal with three seconds left. Their kicker had already successfully kicked a field goal from 42yds, and many expect the same outcome, but this kick was blocked. The ball rolled down to the Anderson five where an Anderson lineman recovered the ball much to the dismay of many fans, including myself. He took just a step and was hit. But before he was pulled down, he pitched the ball to an Anderson running back who took the ball ninety-five yards for the winning score.
As the crestfallen opponents laid across the field in disbelief, the ecstatic Anderson fans began to flood the field. One of Zane’s coaches saw a dejected opponent sprawled out on the field in the path of the oncoming, stampeding fans. Coach Muck ran over between the downed opponent before the charging students got to him. He spread his arms and funneled the fans away from the player. Instead of cheering with the rest of his team and coaching staff, he served. That was one of the craziest endings to football game I have ever witnessed, and a fitting picture of our call to be salt and light in this world; our arms spread out, serving people who are struggling with life.