We All Have a Platform

This is a blog I first posted on July 24, 2008. I am not at all a Florida fan (Alabama), but I cannot help but support someone who stands for what is good. Tim Tebow is a good man. Now he is the MVP of the BCS National Championship game.

In this part of the country, late-summer means one thing… it’s time for football! Seriously, football is a big deal for many, many people – including me. I’ve played it, watched it, dreamed about it, obsessed over it and am now even coaching the game. I would have to classify myself as a person who loves football.This past week, the SEC held media day for their member schools at the Wynfrey Hotel in Hoover, Alabama, which is about 8 miles from where we live. My family is huge Alabama fans and I typically follow this media spectacle to see what the outlook is for other SEC schools. One team that keeps my interest is the Florida Gators. I suppose I keep an eye on them because they always are in the hunt for a national title, especially now.

Florida has a very special player that is the center of their team. He is the heart of Florida football. At the end of the 2007 season, this guy was showered with awards, recognition and accolades. Look at this list of awards and accomplishments: The Heisman Trophy; Maxwell Award; Davey O’Brien Award; AP Player of the Year; Consensus All-American. One would think this post would be all about football. But it’s not. It is about a young man named Tim Tebow - who some would call the best all-around quarterback in the history of college football.The following are some quotes from Tebow while he was in Hoover this past week:“If I can change a kid’s life for the better, that’s much more important to me than going out there and beating Georgia or Florida State or whatever team it is.”

Tim Tebow has been mission- minded his entire life. It is second nature to him. His parents were missionaries. Tim was actually born in the Philippines. Actually, Tim has been on three different mission campaigns since winning the Heisman Trophy.
“We had three breaks. For those three breaks I went to the Philippines, Croatia and Thailand on three mission trips,” Tebow said. “All three of those places I got to do a lot of very neat things, preaching in prisons, in schools, in hospitals, in marketplaces.”

Why does Tebow spend time sharing his faith and working with the poor? After all, Tebow is a superstar. His fans shower him with enough praise to last most of us a lifetime. “The reason I do it is because it’s more important than football to me,” Tebow said. “Doing those things, taking my platform as a football player and using it for good, using it to be an influence and change people’s lives, that’s more important than football to me.”

“I can take what I do in playing football as a game and change people’s lives with it. That’s why football is such a great game. That’s kind of why I do the things, preaching in prisons, doing those different things, trying to take advantage of that platform that God has blessed me with.”
God has blessed Tim Tebow with the physical skills and mental toughness that will make him a football legend. But this 20 year old gets it. He is trying to take advantage of the platform God has blessed him with.

“I want to do everything in my power that football gives me to influence as many people as I can for the good because that’s gonna mean so much more when it’s all said and done than just playing football and winning championships,” Tebow said. We all can learn a lesson from this guy. We have all been blessed with a different platform. Each of us can take full advantage of what God has given us to stand tall for the Kingdom of God. That will mean so much more when it’s all said and done.