This weekend Duke and UNC face off for the last game of the regular season. If you live in this part of the country it’s a REALLY big deal and I just so happen to have tickets to the game (woot woot!). So in honor of this big weekend, I’m re-posting a blog I wrote a couple years ago about the spiritual insights we can gather from the rivalry. This is my attempt at redeeming the borderline idolatrous devotion we fans have to our team.

And just so you know, I love my friends who are Carolina fans. We just can’t watch the game together!

Yesterday I went to the Duke-Miami football game. It was brutal.

But not because my team lost.

Yes, it was a heart-breaking defeat, but given the fact that we led almost the entire first half, I consider it a moral victory. With a current record of 3-3, the Duke Football program is actually making a startling resurgence after years of losing seasons. I’m actually pretty proud of them!

The REAL reason the game was so brutal was the opposing team’s fans. I went to the game with some Miami supporters so I sat in the Miami section. That was my first mistake. But even this might not have been so bad, except that the guy sitting directly behind me was actually a Carolina grad who was rooting for Miami on principle.

Now in case you don’t live in North Carolina and don’t understand what that means, let me put it this way:

Carolina fans are to Duke fans as gnats to a horse. You swat and you swat and you swat, but they just keep coming back, buzzing in your face, like a slow and unending form of torture.

So this guy sits behind me and it’s like he immediately knew I was a Duke fan. I didn’t even have on a Duke shirt! He had some evil form of Duke radar, and he immediately started harrassing me. He would yell at me to get off the phone when I took a call, he flicked my pony tail if Duke made a bad play, and grabbed my arms to make me cheer for the other team when Miami scored. Oh, and there was also lots of screaming…in my ear.

I seriously almost decked the guy.

Now all of this was somewhat bearable while Duke was winning, but once we started losing I almost lost it myself. I mean, who does that? Really??

But as I sat there, my arms being grabbed, my ears being screamed in, and my pony tail getting flicked, I was strengthened by one steadying thought:

“Just wait until basketball season.”

You see, Duke football and Duke basketball are two very different things. Duke football has a history of losing, but when it comes to basketball, we are strong and we are intimidating. Even our biggest rivals fear us, and with good cause. We have an awesome team.

That one little thought, that one hope that things will most certainly change–that was enough to hold me back from saying some very un-Jesus like things to the man sitting behind me. I didn’t have to stand up for my school, because over time, my school would stand up for itself.

So why am I telling you this sweet little tale from the ACC? Because something struck me as I quietly endured football persecution, all the while savoring the knowledge, “Basketball season is coming.”

That is exactly the kind of comfort we are meant to draw from Christ.

It’s crazy to me that my present outlook is shaped more by Duke’s future basketball victories than the knowledge of Christ’s eternal victory. But in the same way that I drew peace and strength from my certain redemption in the basketball season, our eternal security and sure victory in Christ should have real implications for how we live today.

Life is hard. Plain and simple. But it won’t always be this way. As Tony Campolo says, “Friday is here, but Sunday is coming!” And the fact that Sunday is coming should make a difference on how we live today.

So while life may be hard, and standing for the Gospel might result in persecution, you don’t need to worry about standing up for yourself. One day the Redeemer will return and he will stand up for you.

So as you go out into the world and endure your own proverbial pony tail flicks, take heart! Continue fighting for the Gospel and persevering for Christ no matter what happens to you today. Why? Because redemption IS coming. The question is, do you live like it?

I can hardly believe it, but in less than a week Ike and I will hit the 7 month mark since our wedding! It’s gone by so fast and it’s been the best 7 months of my life!

It has, however, also led us to a new phase of our relationship. The last month or so has drawn us deeper into what I call the “sanctification phase” of marriage (though I’m not sure this phase ever officially ends).

We’re getting to the point where we’re both a bit on edge, and our little annoyances and quirks are grating on one another’s nerves. Take, for instance, the fact that Ike has had the song “Nothing But the Blood of Jesus” in his head for the last 4 days. I know this because he whistles it ALL THE TIME. A better women would recognize this as an opportunity to sing along and worship God while I work in my apartment.

You know when you think about it, marriage is kind of like a dog fight: You take two animals that, by nature, are predisposed to hurt one another and then you throw them into a confined space together where they inevitably duke it out.

Actually, before I single-handedly destroy all things romantic about marriage, let me rephrase that in a less appalling way: Marriage is kind of like a chemical reaction. You combine two combustible substances, they react (some more dramatically than others) and the result is an entirely new substance.

Hopefully you get the picture. Marriage can be tough at times. By definition, two sinners will never mix very well, but by the grace of God He transforms them into something new and beautiful in the process.

That said, as I work through my own sanctification and learn how to love my husband as best I can, I keep telling myself the following two things:

1. Sharon, get over yourself.

2. Jesus died on the cross for Ike’s sins, so stop trying to re-crucify them.

I think the first one is pretty straightforward, but let me elaborate on the second. On the rare occasions when Ike is the transgressor instead of me, it’s easy to feel self-righteous and bitter. It’s easy, not because Ike sins against me so frequently, but because I am so forgetful of God’s grace.

It’s funny how willingly I accept God’s forgiveness for my own sins, and how reluctantly I do the same for Ike. I act as if Christ didn’t already die for his sins, and I must somehow restore justice to the universe by giving him the silent treatment. Sometimes I treat him as if Christ’s atoning sacrifice does not apply.

But bestowing justice is not my job. Nor do I want the same unquenchable standard of justice applied to my own life.

The truth of the matter is that God knew both Ike and I would sin against each other many, many times. And that’s why he had to die. So rather than re-crucify each sin that is newly committed, why not rest in the justice and mercy that has already been accomplished for us?

Jesus died on the cross so that your husband wouldn’t have to. Bearing this truth in mind, I pray that my own actions will be that of a wife who reflects back to her husband the redemption accomplished on the cross. I also pray that I will not be the kind of woman who lives as though Christ’s sacrifice was not enough for my husband, or myself.

**And for the record, Sanctification Phase or not, my husband is incredible. I couldn’t be a more fortunate women!!

Since it’s been at least a month since I’ve excerpted something from Wendy Alsup’s blog, and I’ve essentially become her blog stalker, I think it’s about time I post something else.

Wendy recently posted a blog entitled “Equipping Women for Gospel-Centered Lives” in which she examines the noticeably different messages imparted to women at various stages in their lives. While our teaching of women’s discipleship often focuses on the struggles of particular life stages, Wendy highlights a pitfall in this method. By subdividing women’s ministry by life circumstances (ie. books and conferences for singles, marrieds, women struggling with infertility, homeschooling moms, etc.) one runs the risk of emphasizing our differences rather than our unity in Christ. This is why, for instance, many single women feel so greatly divided from their married counter-parts.

It’s not that books for women on marriage and parenting are bad things. They’re not. But these resources represent the majority of books available to women. What is missing are solid books focusing on the most basic foundation of of the female identity–Christ–and the ultimate source of women’s struggles–sin. That is the big picture. The smaller picture, the details of how that theology plays out, can be found in books on marriage and singleness.

With that in mind, here are Wendy’s own thoughts. As a teacher, I am greatly challenged by them:

“May I speak for a moment to those leading women’s ministries and organizing women’s teaching events? If your message doesn’t resonate as well with the single woman watching her biological clock ticking away without a date in 8 years as the wife and mom who homeschools her children, you have missed the fullness of the message of the gospel. You may have communicated some out of context Scripture on women’s roles in the church and home, but you missed the gospel that equips us to bridge the gap between God’s good plan and the depraved world in which we live. That’s a bold statement, I know, but hear me out.

If by the term conservative you mean someone who believes Scripture means what it says and its instructions can be taken at face value, then I am as conservative as they come. But I am not comfortable with the tone of teaching I have heard the last few years from conservative evangelicals on women’s issues. Day in and day out, I hear from woman after woman who doesn’t fit the mold, perhaps by her choice but more often by circumstances completely out of her control, who feels lost in our evangelical construct of what the godly woman looks like. The problem is that she was not taught clearly that the image in which she was created is God’s and the image to which she is now being conformed is Christ’s. She feels pressure to be like Ruth or the Proverbs 31 woman but not so much to be like Christ. But Scripture doesn’t give us that leeway. She was created in God’s image and is being conformed back to Christ’s. Period.“

As I said, it’s not that teachings on submission, Proverbs 31 or women’s roles are wrong–not in and of themselves. The problem arises when we take those good things and made them into God things. Women’s ministry can be guilty of focusing on these issues in a way that supplants the Gospel. Some teachers and authors have so thoroughly equated Christian womanhood with marriage and motherhood that we not only exclude singles and widows in the process, but misconstrue the very heart of Christian discipleship.

The identity of a Christian woman is not to be found in her role as wife or mother. It is to be found in Christ alone. Any teaching that implies otherwise is a form of idolatry that we must be cautious to avoid. Wendy’s challenge to preach a Gospel that resounds just as powerfully with a woman struggling with infertility as it does with the homeschooling mom of seven is certainly one I hope to live up to.