Of Touchlines and Final Whistles

I've got many other failings, but I LOVE football.

I mostly watch football so that I can play better football. (Subsequently this ongoing World Cup should leave me ten times better.) Thinking about football is the thing that once made me stare so dreamily at the horizon that my nearby friend thought I was fantasizing about some girl, and asked who that girl was. I laughed the question off as my thoughts soared back to football heaven. 

The opportunity to play football is what justifies my patience with a coach who always strives to humiliate me. My love for football is bigger than my hatred of his behavior, so I play football no matter. I respect the guy, I love my team mates, I prefer the left wing, we are unbeaten five games into the district league... What's to cry for?

But - there's always a but. There's got to be a limit to my love for football. There's a time for everything. Priorities change. One day I'll have to hang up my boots for good (instead of buying ever more pairs!) and that day, as I can already foresee, will be an extremely sad day for me, whether it's tomorrow or many decades hence. But even before that, in the immediate short term, I am heavily invested in football playing in terms of time and resources; and I can't help but wonder... is this thing destroying or helping me? But my favorite practice shorts have the word "Believe" stitched into the embroidery, so I do just that.

The one thing I am anxious for my soccer playing not to destroy is my walk with God. For it would be better to enter into life without a soccer career, than having a soccer career to be cast into hell. These thoughts have occasioned many struggles of conscience so far. Pending their resolution, I prefer the left wing despite being right-footed. And I don't appreciate the final whistle, since I can never seem to have enough of running around the opposing right back and making his outpost an ever-turbulent succession of breathless doldrums.