I'm writing to respond to Fran Tarkenton's recent column in the Wall Street Journal, Does God Care Who Wins Football Games?  Tarkenton confesses to uncertainty regarding the answer:

As a player, though, I never understood why God would care who won a game between my team and another. It seemed like there were many far more important things going on in the world. There were religious guys on both teams. If God gets credit for the win, does he also take blame for defeat?

I am here to proclaim that God indeed does care about who wins football games, but not necessarily for the reasons commonly offered.  I also hope to address some of the issues Tarkenton raises.

God cares about who wins football games because He cares about our responses to success and failure.

In the book of Proverbs, the under-preached on Agur writes:

Two things I ask of you, LORD; 
   do not refuse me before I die: 
Keep falsehood and lies far from me; 
   give me neither poverty nor riches, 
   but give me only my daily bread. 
Otherwise, I may have too much and disown you 
   and say, Who is the LORD? 
Or I may become poor and steal, 
   and so dishonor the name of my God. (Proverbs 30:7-8, NIV)

Success and failure are both tests.  Failure tests us as to whether we'll take our part of the responsibility and no less, success tests us as to whether we'll take our part of the accomplishment and no more.

God cares about who wins football games because He cares about what we care about.

If you have enough interactions with Christians, you will inevitably encounter someone who will request prayer for the healing of their sick pet, their ill companion animal.  People who pray, and people who believe their prayers make a difference, sometimes wonder if praying for someone's sick pet is the best use of their finite prayer time.  Like Tarkenton, they think that they should be praying for wars to end, or a cure for cancer, or national revival, or the fulfilling of the Great Commission.  But I'm here to tell you it doesn't work that way.  The book of Proverbs teaches "For the LORD detests the perverse, but takes the upright into his confidence." (Proverbs 3:32, NIV)  Someone might say, "Well, God cares more about our character than He does about our sick kitty."  True, but genuinely caring about the smallest details of our lives is His pathway to our understanding and partaking of His character.

God cares about who wins football games because He cares about our priorities.

In his second Inaugural Address, Abraham Lincoln observed the same situation as Tarkenton did:

Both [sides in the Civil War] read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces, but let us judge not, that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered. That of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes.

To paraphrase Lincoln again, God cares more about whether we are on His side, than whether He is on our side.  On the one hand, He would be setting a terrible precedent if the factor of praying and believing completely overrode the factor of football excellence (size, speed, skill, practice, strategy) when it came to the winning of games.  On the other hand, if Tim Tebow prayed "God, may your kingdom come and your will be done regarding tomorrow's game against the Patriots.  That being said, I ask that we give them a good old-fashioned whuppin'!" I would consider that a theologically well-formed prayer, something to which I could say "Amen."

Tarkenton reported that the answer to his prayers regarding Super Bowls VIII, IX and XI was "No."  On the other hand, A lot more people use the phrase "NFL Hall of Fame quarterback Fran Tarkenton" (11,000 exact phrase Google results) than "three-time Super Bowl loser Fran Tarkenton" (3 exact phrase Google search results).  So perhaps his prayers were answered in a different currency than what he was requesting.