Super Bowl XLIV: Dare to Dream

Written by Claire Colvin

I am not a football fan, but it’s hard to ignore the Super Bowl especially this year with its David and Goliath, ripped from a Hollywood screenplay match-up. As I’m sure you’ve heard, the New Orleans Saints will make their Super Bowl debut this year up against the epic Indianapolis Colts. Super Bowl XLIV (44 if your roman numerals are rusty) could well be one to remember.

Talk of offensive and defensive lines is lost on me. What little I know about football I learned from reading Pat Conroy novels. But I even I know this: this year we might really see something special. For the first time in their 43 year history, the Saints are going to the Super Bowl. They get to play with the big boys and could emerge as champions. No disrespect to Peyton Manning, but I’d love see them pull it off. And I know I’m not the only one.

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There is something inside us that hopes for the unlikely, the impossible, and the miraculous. Believing that a team that has never been to the Super Bowl could come away winning it all is just a step away from believing that God could have something incredible planned for me, too.

On Sunday the players will wait, lined-up, muscles tensed and ready for the start of the game. Have you ever felt like you are waiting for something to happen? I’ve felt that too (although admittedly, thankfully, I was not wearing football equipment). It’s pretty common to wonder if there’s something more. We hear stories like J.K. Rowling’s and wonder if it could happen to us. We wonder if we’re destined for greatness.

Do you ever wonder if God’s plan for you is something extraordinary or just a footnote on the end of someone else’s great adventure? We’ve all read Jeremiah 29:11 “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” But sometimes I think we wonder if God has big plans or little plans. I think sometime we wonder if we’re even supposed to want big plans.

In his book Soul Cravings, Erwin McManus talks about the soul’s desire for destiny, how this longing for meaning is coded into the very core of who we are. He talks about destiny at length, but the part that stuck out to me the most was this line, “You are not supposed to passively enter into tomorrow. You are supposed to be actively engaged in the creation of tomorrow.”

Watch: Erwin McManus talks about destiny and meaning

I’ve often thought of God’s plan as something that is already established, something that I have little control over. It’s a different thought entirely to think that God’s plan for me is something that He wants to talk about with me, something that He wants me to participate in.

I heard Oprah say something the other day that was rather interesting. I know that some people love her and some people really, really don’t, but I had a professor in college who said that “all truth is God’s truth” and I like to think he was right. The truth is true, no matter who speaks it. What Oprah said was that whatever we can dream, if we give it to God he can dream a bigger dream for us than we ever could dream for ourselves.

I think she’s really on to something there. I might have an idea of what God’s plan for me is but He has so much more that He wants to share. He has dreams for me that I haven’t even considered yet. This is where I am supposed to be “actively engaged in the creation of tomorrow”. It’s me and God, talking about it, seeing where God will take me.
By the end of the day Sunday, someone will be Super Bowl champions. The Saints may prove that they had it in them all along, or the Colts might remind us why they’ve been to the final game so many times. Either way, someone’s dream will come true and another’s will fall away. There will be confetti and campaign, a dance of victory and a long walk back to a subdued locker room.

What will happen to the rest of us? By the end of the day Sunday will God’s dream for you be a step closer, or just a shadow on the horizon? There’s a beautiful song by Colin Hay that says “Any minute now my ship is coming in … I’m waiting for my real life to begin” My challenge to you, and to myself is this: don’t wait. Your real life is what’s happening right now. Go and talk to God about it. I promise you, His plan for you is nothing ordinary. (GO SAINTS!)

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Tags: Culture, dream, erwin mcmanus, Indianapolis Colts, Men, New Orleans Saints, Peyton Manning, plan, sports, Superbowl XLIV, woman, World

2 Responses to “Super Bowl XLIV: Dare to Dream”

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deebee says:

February 8, 2010 at 4:29 pm

Go Saints indeed! They really did it…a dream come true for all the New Orleans fans.
proverb says:

February 4, 2010 at 6:54 am

thank you so much for that message,It’s really a great help to me.I’m a Save Baptist Christian,from Philippines.
GOd bless!