Chandler Harnish Final Pick ’12 Draft
The Draft is alive and well…not the draft for the military, but for the NFL, NBA, MLB, or MLS. This past week in the NFL there were 253 players ‘drafted’ by the 32 teams. My favorite team, the Indianapolis Colts, had both the first and the last picks of this draft.
As sort of an ‘honor’ the last player picked of the 253 picks is dubbed ‘Mr. Irrelevant’. How much impact is this player really supposed to have in the NFL? If they were really wildly successful in college, they would have been picked higher. This year the Indianapolis Colts picked Chandler Harnish, a quarterback from Northern Illinois, with their last pick…Chandler Harnish is Mr Irrelevant.
But he gets to go to Disneyland. He gets a parade in his honor. He still gets to play in the NFL. He gets to play a game for his job. He was good enough to be picked. The Colts saw something in him that made it worth their pick, even their last pick, on this guy. In reality, if the Colts’ first pick Andrew Luck gets hurt, we could have Mr. Irrelevant as our starting QB. He has the chance to make a difference as some level. And he’s elated to have been picked at all. (You can read for yourself in the above linked article)
This post has the potential to turn into a sports post…which isn’t my aim here.
As I was reading the above article from ESPN.com I was hit with this reality: In the Christian world, there are far more ‘Mr/Ms/Mrs Irrelevants’ than there are ‘#1 picks’. There are a lot of people writing books, speaking, blogging, or whatever that some would say are the all stars, or the super-Christians. But there are far more ‘normal’ Christians out there than those who gain notoriety for their thoughts about Christianity, Church, Mission, or whatever faddish topic is trending.
What I’m getting at is this: This world won’t get any better, won’t ever change, won’t ever become the creation or place God intended it to be, if ‘irrelevant’ Christians don’t get in the game somehow. Often times they/we are too content to just read about topics or listen to sermons instead of live them. Or we think our voice doesn’t matter because it’s not being published. But it’s just not true. While we may think that our voice is irrelevant, or that our actions don’t matter, or that our decisions don’t make an impact on our world, or that we would really make a difference if we wrote a book…we’re just wrong.
Truth is, we live in the neighborhoods we live in, have the friends we have, make the connections we make, all for a reason…for real relationship. Podcasts don’t have friends. Books don’t have ‘besties’ (I can’t believe I had that word even in my head). Often times even speakers on stages feel out of touch with people and live outside of real relationship. There is unspeakable power in the ‘irrelevant’ lives of Christians living out the love of God in tangible flesh and bone.
You or I may never record a podcast. Give a sermon. Write a book. But your voice and life matter. Your voice, my voice, may be the closest thing to the voice of God our neighbors ever hear. God may have something beyond what we could ever ask for, or imagine, planned for us. But if we only ‘leave it to the pro’s’ the ‘#1 picks’, then we’ll never know.
