I have watched every one of the 59 Super Bowl Games played. The first one was when I was a Junior in High School. The Green Bay Packers won that one and the next, with Bart Star as the quarterback. I watched it at a friend’s house because I was invited and some of my other friends were going. We didn’t have football at the High School I attended; I think it was the first football game I had watched. When I got to college, it was a big deal, and I watched them with a bunch of friends. When I got married, Patty’s Dad, who was a football star at the University of San Francisco, took me to a Raiders game when they were still in Oakland, and we watched 49ers games on television every time they played when we visited them. That is why I am a San Francisco 49ers fan today. I don’t know the actual numbers, but I can’t imagine any other event in our culture with more hoopla around it and more people watching it than the Super Bowl. I also can’t imagine the pressure the starting quarterbacks have on them as they play, the disappointment they feel if they lose, and the glory if they win.
I often wonder what it is going to feel like to stand before Jesus at the “Judgment Seat of Christ,” have my life examined by Him, and receive glory or loss of glory. I think about that event a lot. I have memorized dozens of verses about that event and meditate on them often. I start every day out praying a prayer of commitment, and the closing sentence in my prayer is, “I will live today as if it is my last before standing before You and giving an account of my life and being recompensed by You for what I have done with my life, either good or bad. Please help me to serve You well today.”