Don’t Waste Your Sports: Shocker Basketball

Perfection. That is a word foreign to 100% of humanity. No one is perfect in God’s eyes, because everyone has sinned (Rom 3:23). Even the cutest of babies that mom’s and grandma’s “ooh” and “aah” over are not perfect. Even that significant other that you hope to date or marry or are already married to that you think is flawless has imperfections. We all do. No one knows perfection pragmatically.

For the Wichita State Shockers basketball team, they have tasted “athletic perfection.” If you do not follow college basketball, you may have no idea why the Shockers are the center of the basketball world. No team since 2004 (St. Joseph’s who finished 27-0) has finished the regular season undefeated … until this past Saturday. The Shockers completed their regular season at 31-0! “Athletic perfection.” No one was able to defeat them in the 2013-2014 season and many say they will run through their conference tournament with the same amount of success which would make them 34-0 when they enter the National Tournament. Those are some crazy statistics. I have been privileged to be a new resident of the city of Wichita, which has made this whole run incredibly entertaining to watch.

But I digress.

While the Shockers have finished the season undefeated and have the right to say they had a “perfect season,” do you think any of them or any of the coaches would say we did everything perfectly? No way! Not one member of the athletic department would be as prideful or ignorant to say everything went as exactly as it should. Let me illustrate:

• The Shockers missed a total of 911 shots this season.

• The Shockers missed 214 free throws this season.

• The Shockers turned the ball over 328 times this season.

That is not perfection is it? None of those statistics represent 100% of shots made or 100% of the time the Shockers had the ball, they kept it.

So what’s the point of all this?

I just wanted to simply state the obvious: no one is perfect. No one thinks a perfectly good thought every day of the week. No one speaks without a sinful word on their mouth every year. No one makes a perfectly righteous decision every time they are alone for their entire life. Sin is prevalent and sin is common.

Here is the good news: the lack of perfection doesn’t define the Christian. Just like the Shockers aren’t viewed by their missed shots and turnovers, we too are viewed differently by God if we are genuine believers. The sports world viewed the Shockers as having a perfect season even though they made many mistakes. We too are viewed by God as perfect – even thought we have committed may sins.

It’s not what you know; it’s who you know. And if you know Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, the One who is perfect and atoned for our sins on the cross, than you may not be pragmatically perfect, but theologically and in the eyes of God you are! Paul wrote, “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” (II Cor 5:21).