Daily Worship

Remember the First Love for the Game

Elliot Mitchel July 17, 2026 3 1
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Galatians 6: 9-10 (NIV-UK)

9 Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. 10 Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers.

It’s been a rough season…. the energy in the cloakroom is low, the passion has died down and the future prospect of a ‘Groundhog Day’ scenario of escalating losses seems much more of a reality than a spark of luck and relief. Whenever this scenario occurs, it is easy for us to forget those unique moments where the ‘life-giving-ness’ of past achievements gives us the motivation to continue pressing on.

In this passage in Galatians, Paul gives us a good reminder and something to keep in the back of our minds whenever the mood and atmosphere seem bleak and the heaviness of continued losses keeps adding weight to our disappointments and our anxieties: Go back to your first love for the game. Think about it: What made you want to keep going for the love of the game? What was that one stroke of inspiration that made you first tie up those football boot laces to then head onto the pitch of destiny? Truly, what made you want to play the game in the first place?

Deep down, there is always a driving factor for how we continue to press on in both the good times and also (and more poignantly) in the times that are most difficult. It usually finds itself in how ‘life-giving’ it can be. Whenever we witness God’s hand of brilliance at work in a simple two-way conversation, there can be that ‘hook-on’ moment when we sense something amazing, and we fuel our excitement by wanting to continue doing something and fulfil a calling God has placed on us.

 

Prayer:

 

Loving God, remind us of that first love once again. When at times we feel that we have drifted away, when the flame of passion and excitement dies down, give us that renewed vision of faith to help step forward and to experience the game with confidence and hope in our hearts. May you help us, as we seek to spark the flame of passion in our hearts, to be vessels where you can rekindle people’s hearts. Amen.