Outside Looking In

Do you ever feel like you've given your best effort, done everything required of you, but still you're not as well liked or accepted as other people? Your best just isn't good enough?

This week, Baylor and TCU feel the pain of being the bridesmaid and never the bride. Both football teams lost only one game all season. A total of five teams shared a one loss record, but since Florida State was undefeated, only three of them could make the inaugural college football Playoffs.

The Playoff Selection Committee, for a variety of reasons, deemed Alabama, Oregon, and Ohio State  more worthy of a place in the playoffs than either Baylor or TCU.

• Was it the fault of Baylor or TCU that the Big12 doesn't have a conference championship game? No.
• Did Baylor or TCU know how important non-conference schedules would be when they planned their 2014 schedule over a year ago? No.
• Could Baylor or TCU impact perceptions of the other three teams since they didn't play them? No.

Each team did the best they could and even though they had the same number of losses they are left outside looking in.

Christianity is much like this.

We live our lives to the best of our ability. We treat people well. We're as good as we can be. But all our efforts still leave us on the outside of eternity looking in.  We're measured against an impossibly high standard that our best efforts just can't meet.

Perhaps we feel that it's not our fault. 

• If Adam and Eve hadn't introduced sin into the world...
• If my parents had treated me differently...
• If I'd been accepted to that school or job...
• If...

And that's where grace kicks in. "God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us." (Romans 5:8) We were on the outside looking in, but God sacrificed his perfect Son to open the door and grant us entry to his eternal kingdom.

How ridiculous is this act on God's part?

Can you imagine the perfect (13-0) Florida State suddenly saying, "We'll forfeit our spot in the playoffs so that Baylor and TCU can play." (I know the math doesn't work.) The FSU fans would go crazy!!  Every administrator at the university would be fired. The internet would probably blow up.

Yet as Christians we talk about God's grace to us as though it's the most natural thing in the world.

Is Perfect Good Enough?

According to multiple news reports, including www.orangebloods.com the football coach at the University of Texas, Mack Brown, will be forced to retire in the immediate future.

Brown has been the head coach in Texas for sixteen years. Fifteen of those years produced winning seasons. In fact, from 2001 to 2009 they won at least 10 games every year. In 2005 Texas won the national championship and came second in 2009. They won the Rose Bowl in 2004 and the Fiesta Bowl in 2008. They also won the the Big 12 title in 2005 and 2009.

In almost any college football program in the country this would be a hugely successful era.

But Texas isn't "any football program in the country."

The Texas football program has enormous financial resources and the administration and fans expect that support and wealth to result in regular Big 12 championships at the least and national championships every few years.

Over the past four years the Longhorns have barely broken even in the Big 12 with a 18-17 win-loss record. This article also points out that "Brown [is] the first coach in Texas history to suffer four straight seasons with at least four losses."

So turning around a season that started with two unexpected losses and clawing back to a share of second in the Big 12 wasn't good enough to save Brown's job.

Different jobs come with different expectations. Sometimes just having a winning record is a major achievement for the team. In other locations beating a traditional rival will make a successful season. But then there are those teams for whom anything less than ultimate success is failure.

Each time I hear of a successful coach being fired for not being successful "enough" I reflect on the grace I receive from God. The only "enough" God seeks from me, is a spirit broken enough to recognise my need for God's forgiveness and healing in my life.

You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly.

Romans 5:6 (tNIV)

Plenty of times I get caught up in the pursuit of various "enoughs" trying to please God or earn something from Him. I'm glad God's standards are so much lower that those of football fans around the world, because I'm never enough for God. The only "enough" in our relationship is that God is "enough" for me!