Monday, July 13, 2015

Did you watch Underdog as a kid?


 
I realize I’m revealing my age, but since it’s my birthday tomorrow I might as well.  I hear there’s a 2007 movie version out on Netflix.  Maybe the kids and I will watch it.  We love to root for the underdog, don’t we.  I think that’s because there’s a little bit of the underdog in all of us.  

Are you the kid who didn’t get picked for a team?  Or maybe your science fair project earned the participation ribbon?  Perhaps everyone ‘just forgot’ to invite you to the party.  Whatever form it takes, we all experience rejection on some level.  If you claim that you have not, I’m going to employ a playground favorite “Liar, Liar pants on fire!”  When I was a kid on the playground, I often felt like an outcast.  Maybe you did too.  Here’s one of my favorite things about God: He picks the underdog.  Fee and Stuart note this as one of the various common themes in Biblical narratives.1  God chose the younger brother Jacob over the older brother Esau as heir of His covenant with Isaac and Abraham.  He chose Rahab (prostitute) and Ruth (foreigner) to be ancestors of King David.  He chose David as King of Israel instead of his older and stronger brothers.  Jesus associated with tax collectors, ‘sinners’, and other religious reprobates during His earthly ministry. 

If you have ever felt invisible in the eyes of others, contemptible or forlorn, then I want you to read this next part closely.  God calls you by name.  He chooses you.  He claims you as His own.  Now read it again and believe it. 

      1.  Fee, Gordon D., and Douglas K. Stuart. How to Read the Bible Book by Book: A Guided Tour. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2002. N. p. 23. Print.