Put me in coach! (1 Timothy 6:17)

Have you ever thought that being a christian means you can never have any fun? Have you ever looked at the Bible and thought that is was chock-full of THOU SHALT NOTs? Let me give you this little parable:

In the offices of the local football team, the head coach is quietly looking over his notes for the upcoming season when his offensive coordinator bust open the door disheveled and frustrated.

“Coach have you seen this!” The offensive coordinator frantically waves the official football league rule book at the head coach. “I thought I knew the gist of it, but I spent some time this off-season reading over it in depth! You won’t believe all the things we aren’t allowed to do!”

The head coach, as calm as can be, kindly gestures his offensive coordinator to sit down at his desk. “Tell me…what rules have been bothering you?”

“Well you better not have anything else on your schedule today then, because this will take me some time to get through the all! There ridiculous!” The head coach again calms down his offensive coordinator and asks him to point out one of the rules giving him problems. “Check this one out. This one has to be at the top of my list!”

Rule 7, Section 5, Article 1: The offensive team must be in compliance with the following at the start of a play:
(a) It must have seven or more players on its line of scrimmage; and
(b) Eligible receivers must be on both ends of the line, and all of the players on the line between them must be in eligible receivers.

The offensive coordinator looks at his head coach in anticipation of an outburst of rage at the rule.

Nothing happens.

“Don’t you see?" yells the offensive coordinator. "This is ridiculous! I only get 11 guys on the field for each play and they want me to have 7 of them all on one stinkin’ line! Then when we pass the ball, 5 of those guys are even allowed to touch it! Almost half my players are useless! Why do we even have them out there? And to top it all off I was just over telling this to the defensive coordinator and you know what he said? He said his guys can line up pretty much anywhere AND they can get the ball whenever they want!” His angered rant leaves the offensive coordinator panting and staring at the head coach waiting for any possible relief.

The head coach thinks for a minute before he begins to speak. “You’re here to coach football, right?” The offensive coordinator nods his head. “Well there are rules that go into playing football correctly.”

The offensive coordinator pipes in. “How are we supposed to win a single game this season following these rules!”

He is quickly silenced by the head coach. “If you break these rules there will be consequences. Maybe can you get away with a lot of penalties in a couple games, but in the end following the rules is the only way to succeed.” The offensive coordinator gasps in disbelief. “Let me ask you this,” continues the head coach, “what don’t you find in the rule book ” The offensive coordinator thinks for a minute without a response. “A rule book doesn’t tell you all of the amazing possibilities you can use when you follow the rules.” The head coach pulls out a thick binder three times as big as the rule book that is clutched in the hands of the offensive coordinator. The head coach drops the binder on the desk with a loud thud and flips open to the first couple pages. “Here’s the overview of all of our teams basic offensive formations.”

“Each one of these formations contains several pages of possible plays and all of them use the rule that you think we can't follow if we want to win. And that’s just our team. Every team in every league has a book like this and none of our books are the same. On top of that, there are so many more possibilities that we haven’t even come up with yet! You're focusing on the rules as barriers to your success. Start seeing them as a guide for your success."

Illegal formation on the offense:

Repeat 1st down.