Any Given Sunday!

“Any Given Sunday” is a popular phrase in football. It is a motivational reminder for coaches and players that anything is possible when the game is played. The worst team can pull off an upset, or a mediocre player can set a personal record. Part of the joy of sports competition is the unknown. And it is an even better phrase for Christians:

• Any Given Sunday: A soul may be saved!

• Any Given Sunday: A marriage might be mended!

• Any Given Sunday: A Christian may be strengthened to fight chronic pain or terminal disease.

This hope of Any Given Sunday reminds

us that God works in quietness behind

the scenes as well as in quaking displays of power. Believers frequently long for extra spectacular moves of God and breathtaking miraculous intervention in our world, because it is easier to take courage when we see God acting and moving in power in stunning ways.  Standing with conviction seems harder when God chooses to move in remarkably ordinary ways.

But when God so chooses not to move in visible and extraordinary ways, spiritual discouragement can set in. The same God who commands us to have the “ambition to lead a quiet life and attend to your own business” (1 Thessalonians 4:11) often himself works off stage, behind the scenes.

 

I thought of this recently as I meditated on the stories of Elijah's amazing courage and victory on Mount Carmel (1 Kings 18), followed in the very next chapter (1 Kings 19) by his miserable depression. His pessimism leads him to depression and destructive thoughts: “he asked that he might die” (verse 4). Yet, consider all that Elijah had just accomplished…

When King Ahab sought to put him to death, Elijah appeared and dared him to a spiritual confrontation (1 Kings 18:10, 19). He gathered God’s people and challenged them to return to the one true God. Then, God rained fire down on the altar after Elijah openly rebuked the false prophets. What a day! Israel remembered the one true God: “The Lord, he is God; the Lord, he is God” (Verse 39). Elijah kills the false prophets, prophesies the end of the drought, and God sends the rain! This high-water mark for Elijah should have led to greater faith and courage.

    But then God goes quiet and does not do what Elijah expected: D.A. Carson provides an insightful take on what was happening in the mind of the prophet.

Doubtless, Elijah expected that, after the triumphant confrontation on Mount Carmel, Israel would turn back to the living God (1 Kings 19). As he had executed the false prophets, so Queen Jezebel herself would be eliminated—by the popular demand of an outraged populace determined to be faithful and loyal to the covenant. Perhaps even King Ahab would repent and come on board…2

`             Surely Israel would rise against Jezebel and Ahab. Surely, Elijah would see a national revival. But the people of God who had been limping along spiritually (verse 21) either did not respond or fearfully remained quiet. God's apparent lack of intervention drives Elijah into depression. And as we all have experienced, as we sink into discouragement, or rationality is compromised:

One can sympathize with Elijah’s despair. In part, it is grounded in unfulfilled expectations. He thought that all that had taken place would trigger massive renewal. Now he feels not only isolated, but betrayed. And yet: (1) He has his facts wrong. He knows that at least a hundred of the Lord’s prophets are still alive, even if they are in hiding (18:13). (2) He is not in a fit state to judge the hearts of all the Israelites. Some may be loyal to Yahweh but terrified of Jezebel and, therefore, keep their heads down. After all, isn’t that what he himself is doing?3

God shows his grace to Elijah in his disorientation. He pulls back the curtain to show him His presence in the cave (1 Kings 19:12-15) and on the national scene (Verses18-15). God will even give him an apprentice, Elisha, to help shoulder the burden. In our lives, we cannot always see what God is doing, and that waiting can unnerve us. We forget that God not only moves on any given Sunday, but on Any Given Day — every hour! It has been well said: “God is always doing 10,000 things in your life, and you may be aware of three of them.”4 To think our ever-active God has stopped working to move His Kingdom forward reveals the successful whispering of the Adversary. If we learn to see God in the waiting, we discover practical life applications.

 

The Power of an “Any Given Day” Expectation!

First, for Christian leaders, we must not live consumed with only thoughts of revival. I understand why pastors fast, pray, plead, plan, and talk about the coming of revival. But I hear pastors say with discouragement that they have gone their whole life and never seen revival, as if they have missed God at work!

May revival come! But when pastors long only for great, visible, and spectacular revival, we overlook God working every day, especially Sundays. God moves each and every Sunday, and Monday, and Tuesday…- whether we can perceive it or not!

Does not God use Any Given (biblical) Sermon? Is not Any Given Soul saved spectacular (Luke 15:7, 10)? Is not Any Given (biblical) Song we sing one that pleases our Sovereign? I wonder if many modern pastors would be a little disappointed to discover that, more often than great days like Pentecost, God grew the early church in remarkably ordinary and subtle ways! Does this sound a bit vanilla and plain to you? “So the church throughout all Judea and Galilee and Samaria had peace and was being built up. And walking in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit, it multiplied (Acts 9:31).

                Let us not focus so much on the unknown of what God might do in the future, as this can be subtle ingratitude for his continual awesome work today. How sad to go longing for what God may or may not grant and miss the beauty of Any Given Day of serving the Lord.  Further, if we only talk among ourselves about what might be, we mislead ourselves into seeking the big and spectacular, all while overlooking the miracles of daily life. These things ought not to be. Yes, pray for revival, and seek God's favor. May He do great things on a large scale for His glory! But let us not wait impatiently, desire what He might not will to be, or miss Any Given Day when our God performs amazing things.

                Second, seeking and seeing God in more ordinary acts guards against the discouragement that occurs when we fail to meditate on God's work in his word and world. How easily we focus on the negative in our lives. We look past the sunrise, the trees, and his beautiful saints at work serving him. Satan constantly distracts our eyes this way from the spectacular spiritual world around us.

We need God to open our eyes like those of Elisha's servant: “Then Elisha prayed and said, “O Lord, please open his eyes that he may see.” So, the Lord opened the eyes of the young man, and he saw, and behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha” (2 Kings 6:17). Do you regularly stop and meditate on the beauty of God's creation? Do you stop and regularly muse on the wonder of God's gathered church on Sundays? Do you pause and pray at the end of Bible chapters and ask God to help you see His invisible fingerprints everywhere?  

 

                Third, an expectation of seeing God work on Any Given Day reminds us that God can and will meet with us anytime we seek Him in solitude. His sustaining grace is always available.  I have been in ministry for more than 30 years and have never had a season of discouragement or burnout. But I have seen it so often all around me in other ministers!

The only thing to which I can attribute such protection from such dark times is the grace of God through remarkably ordinary daily devotions. I learned as a young minister that I should seek the Lord on Any Given Day.

Quietly alone with Him (Matthew 6:4, 6, 18), He meets me and empowers me! In this October remembrance of pastor appreciation, I thank God for the pastors and ministers who modeled for me how to seek the Lord through prayer, Bible study, meditation, fasting, and more.  May the Lord protect us from spiritual discouragement in the ordinary and empower us for delightful daily duty!

1The idea of "Any Given Sunday" is at least as old as 1952. NFL Commissioner Bert Bell Declares: "On Any Given Sunday, Any One Team Can Beat Any Other Team" - Newspapers.com. The 1999 movie of the same name further popularized it. Note: That movie is R-rated, and Jay neither watches such movies nor recommends them. Proverbs 4:23

2D. A. Carson, For the Love of God: A Daily Companion for Discovering the Riches of God’s Word, vol. 1 (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 1998), 315.

3Ibid.

4John Piper, “God Is Always Doing 10,000 Things in Your Life,” Desiring God, 1 Jan. 2013, https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/god-is-always-doing-10000-things-in-your-life