Tim Tebow / Peyton Manning

I can't help myself.  All day long, and really ever since Peyton Manning was signed and the Tebow countdown clock started, I have been reading facebook and twitter posts from Tebow-ites raging that God will bless whichever team picks up Tebow and curse the Bronco's.  I'm sorry, I'm laughing at you and not with you.  I will play along with your train of thought and ignore the fact that Peyton Manning also claims to follow Christ (ouch, turns out Timmy and Peyton are in fact on the same team, looks like you can't hate the Bronco's anymore...), and address what I see as the silly premise at the base of a lot of this internet tough guy hate.  I think most of these statements reveal the truth, that many professing believers root for Tim Tebow because they see a man living his faith out in a way that makes them feel guilty because they don't live their faith out at all.  And they are rooting for his success because then the paradigm through which they see God is fulfilled: Do good for God and He will give you earthly blessings.  When that paradigm gets blown up, and the truth that has been proclaimed throughout scripture and history, that those who follow Christ adamantly and without reservation usually end up getting the brunt end of the stick, people get angry because they can't handle the idea that God's ultimate good for a person to get him to the place where he does not hold tightly to the things of this earth.  Thus the promises of a hard life, not an easy one.  I work in college athletics at a Christian University and so I can say this pretty definitively: I rarely see anyone interested in the hope we as Christians have after we beat them senseless at a game.  But when we bust our butts and get a raw deal, or when we give it everything we have and lose when we aren't supposed to, that's when people see something different.  Our hope isn't in a game or success in a game, it's in Jesus Christ.  Tim Tebow got a raw deal.  He was busy busting his butt to be the best he could be and got displaced by a first ballot Hall of Famer (who, once again, professes to believe in the same God).  Stop whining about it and start checking your gut to see what you hope in so that when life does the same thing to you, you run to Christ.