{"id":9224,"date":"2019-02-03T11:28:00","date_gmt":"2019-02-03T17:28:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/dear-god-is-it-ok-for-us-to-pray-for\/"},"modified":"2019-02-18T17:25:04","modified_gmt":"2019-02-18T23:25:04","slug":"dear-god-is-it-ok-for-us-to-pray-for","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/?p=9224","title":{"rendered":"Dear God, Is it OK for Us to Pray for our Team to Win?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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This is Super Bowl Sunday and if you’re not a Rams or Patriots fan, you may not be inclined to feel “passionate” about today’s game. You probably don’t care one way or the other who wins. But if you are one of those team’s fans, you may be as passionate about your team, as I would have been if my Dallas Cowboys had made it the distance.<\/p>\n

I heard my son and his buddy talking about the game yesterday. Ryan was giving his support for the Patriots: \u201cWhy wouldn\u2019t we want to see the Patriots set records and win again? They have proven themselves to be champions. They have arguably the greatest quarterback of all time and Bill Belicheck is the greatest NFL coach of all time. They\u2019ve created one of the most dominant sports dynasties in American sports history.\u201d Then his buddy declared his case for the Rams: “Sean McVay is the youngest coach in history and Jared Goff is the youngest quarterback at 24 to go to the Super Bowl since Brady won his first Super Bowl at age 24. It\u2019s time to give others a chance to prove themselves!\u201d I was amused at their bantering.<\/p>\n

I was also amused by a Fox News story of a pastor who was asking: \u201cIs it OK for us to pray for our team to win the Super Bowl?\u201d I was so taken with his article that I make it part of my post today. Here are some excerpts: \u201cI grew up in New England so you can guess who I am rooting for to win the Super Bowl. I was an athlete and my two boys played college football, so I\u2019ve always prayed for a win.<\/p>\n

The majority of people don\u2019t believe you should pray for God\u2019s help. I\u2019m sure most of them think God has better things to do than concern himself with whether the Patriots win their sixth Super Bowl. But the Bible tells us in Philippians 4:6, \u201cDon\u2019t worry about anything, but pray about everything.\u201d Everything includes sports. If you care about your team you can pray for them. Of course, there will also be people praying for the other team. We can pray for success because God wants us to be successful. He wants us to live life to the fullest. My definition of success is fully living out your life\u2019s purpose. God equips us with talents, gifts, passions, and opportunities. And He expects us to fulfill our potential. When we do, we are a success.<\/p>\n

Genesis 39:23 tells us, \u201cThe Lord was with Joseph and made him successful in all that he did.\u201d We can certainly pray for God to make us successful too. For the players in Sunday\u2019s game, success means doing their very best with the gifts, talents, and opportunities God gave them. They can certainly pray for that and we can pray that for them as well.<\/p>\n

Go ahead and pray for your team on Sunday. Pray that every player on the team plays to his fullest potential. It\u2019s likely that the ones who don\u2019t on either team will decide the outcome of the game. And if by some chance all the players perform to their fullest ability, then the Super Bowl champions will of course be\u2026the Patriots!” — Pastor Rick McDaniel<\/p>\n

I loved the \u201ctake away\u201d from this pastor\u2019s post. Pray about everything. That\u2019s our call to action. Pray about our country. Pray about our families. Pray about our neighbors and our friends who need prayer. In the end, God will still be the ultimate, great and sovereign Umpire Who calls the plays and gives penalties OR rewards. That\u2019s what God asks for \u2013 to perform to the greatest of our ability and keep praying. We are on the winning team, God\u2019s team and we always win! Just check out the end of His play-BOOK!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is Super Bowl Sunday and if you’re not a Rams or Patriots fan, you may not be inclined to feel “passionate” about today’s game. You probably don’t care one way or the other who wins. But if you are one of those team’s fans, you may be as passionate about your team, as I…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9233,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[12395,6079,4561,1893,12396,12397,10735,997,7785,12398,12399,3808,3812,3813],"class_list":["post-9224","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-bill-belicheck","tag-champions","tag-dallas-cowboys","tag-dont-worry","tag-genesis-3923","tag-jared-goff","tag-patriots","tag-philippians-46","tag-pray-about-everything","tag-rams","tag-sean-mcvay","tag-super-bowl","tag-super-bowl-sunday","tag-tom-brady"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9224","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9224"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9224\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9381,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9224\/revisions\/9381"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9233"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9224"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9224"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9224"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}