Here's what I think football can teach us about the Christian journey

We have reached the end of the football season – the point at which winners and losers are determined. The ten-month, 38-game marathon, which began last August, finally draws to its climactic conclusion.

The season’s finish provides either the highest highs or the lowest lows as a year’s effort boils down to a handful of key moments when players must perform at their best or face the unravelling of much of the work they have put in throughout the year.

Viewers were blessed with excitement right to the end of this season both north and south of the border, with Scotland enjoying its closest title race in 15 years and England’s Premier League seeing its battles at the top and bottom go down to the last couple of matches.

Football’s league format – the primary means of competition in football – has long been argued to be one of the greatest sporting inventions as it is the ultimate way of determining which team is the best in its division.

Over a gruelling 38-match season (in Scotland and England), all teams play each other home and away between August and May amid changing weather conditions, fixture congestion, injuries, and a host of other obstacles that must be navigated to achieve success when the prizes are handed out at the end.

'Within touching distance'

The all-or-nothing nature of football’s league format is perhaps best seen this time around in Scotland, where Hearts came up agonisingly short in their quest to become the first team to break Rangers and Celtic’s 41-year duopoly over Scottish football.

Hearts had led the way for virtually the entire season in the Scottish Premiership, remaining top of the pile for 250 days and staying there until the last five minutes of regulation time in their league-deciding final match at Celtic Park. As television coverage showed, the league trophy was in the stadium, and they surely felt that the sight of it draped in maroon ribbons was within touching distance.

However, their dreams of sporting immortality suddenly evaporated as Celtic scored twice late on, retaining their crown and gaining their reward for the definitive “better late than never” burst of form – seven wins from seven – to overtake their Edinburgh opponents during the season’s final moments.

It was a perfect encapsulation of the all-or-nothing nature of events, with Celtic suddenly snatching “all” from the jaws of “nothing”, leaving Hearts to the agony of a second-placed finish (which will have felt like last place given how events unfolded and knowing it will require another entire year’s work to get into such a position again).

The Christian journey

Parallels can be drawn between the marathon-like elements of a league season – with its changing seasons, dips in form, and injury problems – with the nature of our Christian journey as we move through the process of sanctification on towards the final prize.

The Christian life is not easy at times and was never promised to be, but we must always seek to keep moving forward, navigating highs and lows with our eyes fixed firmly on the prize set before us.

It will not do to only serve Christ when the going is easy, or when our form is good and the sun is shining – to compare it to the league season. No, we must keep going when we are struggling with fears or doubts or when we feel weakness creeping in, for this can often be when our faith is truly tested and strengthened.

One of the key differences, however, between our journey and that of footballers, is that we have certainty about what the end will bring. There will be no disappointment when we finish the race, but only joy as we experience God’s glory in all of its fullness.

No, we will not put all of the required work in only to come up short – if we are His, then He will make sure we cross the finish line and secure the prize that awaits us when He has finished moulding us into the Christ-like saints He has created us to be.