Kill Your Idols

This is going to be quite the self-reflecting post as it's been something I have battled with for years....

So if it gets a little weird, please forgive me :)

Let's start off by saying, over my lifetime I've been pretty passionate about a few things. Online business, entrepreneurship, self education, reading, religion, Christianity, and the big one....Sports.

And when I say, passionate, I mean much more than just loving something....It's literally taken over my life. I'm not going to touch on all of these things for this post, just the latter.

You see, I love sports.

Ever since I can remember, I've had a deep passion with my favorite sports teams. It may have began with my Dad taking me to all the professional sports teams in Toronto growing up. I have very fond memories of the time with him as he explained the games to me and all the players. And then it got even more 'real' when I started playing them as well. I was actually very good at hockey and baseball growing up.

Anyways, this literally continued throughout my entire life. Any time the Toronto Raptors, Toronto Blue Jays, Toronto Maple Leafs, Buffalo Bills or the Edmonton Oilers were on TV, my world stopped.

Wanna see how crazy it got? Check out Jongo on a Sunday afternoon when the Bills are playing. Everything else shuts down. Literally...I ignore basically everything else in the world and focus 100% on the game. So much so, that my family gets the short end of the stick and they seem to become background noise to me during these times.

This isn't good.

I have always known something needed to change because let's be honest...Whether my favorite team wins or loses, has absolutely zero impact on my life directly. I'm not employed by the teams, I don't gamble, I'm not a part of the actual game...So why do I even care?

Some will say, it's harmless fun, some may say it's normal to be a fan....However I have begun to look at this through the lens of the bible.

These teams, have become the objectives of my attention. My 'worship' hs been focused on them for decades. Literally, breaking the first and second commandments of God. They have become my idols and I have been bowing down to these teams for as long as I can remember.

Now I'm not saying you shouldn't be a fan of a sports team and enjoy a game or two. No the issue is when it becomes all you think about. It's when they become the objects of your attention and you put your world on the back burner. In a biblical sense, it's when you put anything above and before God.

And it's not just sports teams, we create idols and worship a lot of different things on the planet. Money, crypto, markets, business...All these things were also idols and 'gods' to me, because I put them above God. This is a tipping point of sorts for me in my life because I am now being convicted that this must stop.

And this isn't meant to be a punishment, everywhere n the bible it reads that we will become 'dead' to the world and the things in it, and focus on heavenly things. Which is all God ever wants, our focus on Him and our attention and passions to be heavenward.

It's kind of exciting to be honest, because once again I have found a less stressful way to live lol. Instead of freaking out when the other team scores a goal or gets a touchdown, I'm more worried about my time spent in Scripture. I'm not in love with refreshing sports scores and reading the latest news about the Buffalo Bills training camp. As crazy as it sounds, I was 'stressed' watching a silly sports game.

Again, I'm not saying....Don't watch sports, far from it. It's more of a personal reflection on how it took over my life, and I just need to put my priorities back in order.....God, family and then everything else!

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