What Matters More Than The Super Bowl

My team, the New York Giants, decided to not even show up for the playoffs this year. Oh, the Super Bowl was in their stadium, but - how sad it is - there was no blue and white on the field.

I was expecting a "gunfight at the OK Corral" kind of game. Uh, it was more like only one guy showed up with a gun.

Oddsmakers were predicting Denver was going to win by one point. They lost 43-8.

But Denver Broncos defensive end Shaun Phillips managed to emerge from that blowout a winner. Where it really counts.

Shaun texted his son Jaylen and said, "Sorry I let you down."

His son's answer changed everything. "It's OK daddy u r still my hero."

Boom! Perspective. Playing in the Super Bowl - big accomplishment. Being a super dad - the biggest victory a man can win.

And suddenly, Shaun was reminded of where putting points on the board matters most. He told his son, "Well, at least we get to hang out now."

That little exchange on Super Bowl Sunday is a message for every one of us someone calls dad.

You can be a hero "on the field" - whatever your field is - and a zero at home. But if you're a hero at home, you can weather the blowouts in the other parts of your life.

My son tells me, "Dad, it doesn't matter how crazy my workday has been, I walk in the door of my house and five minutes with my kids reminds me what really matters." I smile when he says that. He and his siblings did that for me more times than I can count.

Of course, some dads come home to just another battlefield. But the man of the house has more effect on the climate of that house than anyone else. Beginning in the Garden of Eden, God has held the man ultimately responsible for what happens in his family.

It's a classic case of "a man reaps what he sows," as it says in the Bible (Galatians 6:7). If you sow unselfishness, you'll start to reap unselfishness. If you sow "I come first," you'll reap a family of people who are all about themselves.

The homefront harvest of stress or peace...of harshness or kindness...of criticism or encouragement - so much of it depends on the seed sown by dad.

That's why the Bible warns fathers to "not embitter your children or they will become discouraged" (Colossians 3:21). And "fathers do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord" (Ephesians 6:4).

I came to realize that I was the thermostat in my family, setting the temperature; my wife was the thermometer, reflecting the temperature I set; and my children were the seismograph, registering every disturbance.

Clearly, the central arena of a man's best efforts is to be in his home. No amount of applause, awards or accomplishment outside his family can begin to compensate for losing at home.

And the weight of that life-shaping assignment - with so much potential for being life-scarring instead - has driven me to seek outside help. From the God who told us to call Him "our Father."

It was being a husband, being a dad, that showed me that I am not enough. That my family had needs I couldn't meet because I hadn't figured out how to meet those needs in me. That the things that troubled me in my kids mirrored my own weaknesses. My own baggage. My own sin.

That's when the word "Savior" becomes intensely personal. I need a Rescuer. From the dark side of me God calls sin. A dark side that becomes a spreading infection when you have a wife. When you have children.

So I reached out to Jesus and grabbed Him like a drowning man would grab a rescuer. Because "the Lord Jesus Christ...gave Himself for our sins to rescue us" (Galatians 1:3). And there I found that this self-centered sinner of a dad could become "a new creation in Christ" (2 Corinthians 5:17).

With God's power, anyone can win the game that matters more than any other.

Winning the hearts of the children He gave me.