Last Saturday I personally watched two football games.\u00a0 Early in the day, my great-grandson, Crawford Graham Kennedy played for his 6 to 8 year old team in Weatherford, Texas.\u00a0 Later that same day, my alma mater, Howard Payne University played Simpson College from Iowa \u2013 the first college game ever played in the Dallas Cowboys\u2019 Ford Center at the Star in Frisco, Texas.\u00a0 Both took me back.\u00a0 My personal football playing career was short lived.\u00a0 I played my first game when I was ten years old, playing wing back in our single wing offense \u2013 I scored one touchdown that year, but a dumb lineman was off-sides.\u00a0 My football career ended when I was fifteen and suffered a broken second vertebra of the neck in an automobile accident. \u00a0Basketball ended when other guys kept growing and I stopped at 5\u201910\u201d and my time on the diamond ended one night as I rounded third base – my heart said go for home and my mind said stop on third \u2013 Pop!\u00a0 Ham String.\u00a0 Ice Hockey was something played up north and Soccer was unheard of in Houston of the 1950s.\u00a0 I had a brief one-day tenure on the college track team when our college was hosting the conference meet and the coach asked for anyone who could compete to join the team.\u00a0 I thought if I could throw a baseball, I could throw a javelin.\u00a0 Wrong. .\u00a0 The Apostle Paul knew of the sports of his day, writing, \u201cI run thus: not with uncertainty. Thus I fight: not as one who beats the air (1 Corinthians 9:26)).\u00a0 Participation in sports is good.\u00a0 It keeps you physically fit and encourages spiritual fitness.\u00a0 The New Testament word, \u201cgumnasia\u201d (1 Timothy 4:7-8) is variously translated exercise, discipline, train and from this Greek word, we get the English word, gymnasium.\u00a0 I just wish someone had invented Pickleball when I was younger.<\/p>\n
Dr. Dan R. Crawford, Senior Professor, Chair of Prayer Emeritus; Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, Fort Worth, Texas. Former Head of Task Force for the Teaching of Prayer in Theological Education for America\u2019s National Prayer Committee. Former Consultant for the West Coast Baptist Association, Vancouver, B.C., Canada.\u00a0 Administrative Consultant for the Valley Baptist Missions Education Center, Texas. President of Disciple All Nations, Inc.<\/p>\n
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Last Saturday I personally watched two football games.\u00a0 Early in the day, my great-grandson, Crawford Graham Kennedy played for his 6 to 8 year old team in Weatherford, Texas.\u00a0 Later that same day, my alma mater, Howard Payne University played Simpson College from Iowa \u2013 the first college game ever played in the Dallas Cowboys\u2019…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_kad_post_transparent":"default","_kad_post_title":"default","_kad_post_layout":"default","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"default","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"default","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4073","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-monday-morning-manna"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4073","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4073"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4073\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4074,"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4073\/revisions\/4074"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4073"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4073"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4073"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}