Fantasy Bible

I love fantasy football. I have been playing regularly for several years now, and enjoy all aspects of it. Fantasy football drafts are occurring all over the place this time of year, and as a matter of fact I have two live drafts this weekend that I am attending.
Drafting, for those of you that may not know, is the wonderful opportunity one has to build a team from a pool of all available NFL players. From year to year you never know who you might have, and it is always exciting to see which NFL players you will be rooting for and against in the upcoming season. Strategizing with others as to who you might take and who you might avoid adds an extra dimension to the game.
But not all drafts are fun. Some drafts can be difficult, and even downright scary. Such was the case when I entered into a draft with Devil. The Devil had approached me about belonging to a very select league, one in which only he and I were the participants. And this was to be no ordinary draft. This was to be a fantasy biblical draft, with the winner taking….well, let’s just say that the stakes were very high.
As anyone who plays fantasy football knows, the draft can often make or break your season. It is up to you to not only have a solid lineup, but to be able to pick out the diamonds in the rough. One wants to find those players that nobody else expects much of but who are going to have solid seasons. When it came to our biblical draft, the importance of this was heightened.
When the Devil arrived, I was surprised to find that he was not as ugly as I expected. There were no boney fingers, no smoldering skin, no horns and no cloven hooves. As a matter of fact, he was one of the most handsome men I had ever see, dressed in a fine Armani suit, Gucci shoes and wearing what I believed to be a Cartier jewelry (this is not to say that Armani, Gucci and Cartier are evil. This is only to say that the Devil knows how to dress.)
But we weren’t drafting to win Cartier or Armani. We were drafting for much more than that. The rules of this draft were simple. Being the Devil, he insisted that we limit ourselves to six players on each team. The players could be any person, any animal, or just about anything from the Bible, save for one person he considered out of bounds. He didn’t mention the name of that man, but he didn’t need to. I agreed, feeling confident with my biblical knowledge that I could field a superior team to the Devil’s.
We sat down with our draft sheets and prepared ourselves. The Devil insisted that since he was a gentleman, I should go first. I nervously looked over the biblical rosters, both old and new testaments, trying to determine the most solid players. When it was time for my first pick, I choose David. David was a solid player, a righteous king who was led by God and took down the behemoth Goliath as a young man. To this day the name of King David is revered throughout the land.
I made a solid choice and I knew I put the Devil in a corner. He was going to have to find something just as good as his first pick, and that was going to be hard. But the Devil just smiled at me, and took Bathsheba as his first choice.
This was something I didn’t see coming. The Devil wasn’t going for power or might with his pick, but with the perfect answer to David, and the one thing that bedevils all men. Bathsheba was one of David’s great weaknesses, and not only would she be an effective tool against David, but the use of sexual lust was going to weaken any of the men I choose from then on out. This was not an obvious choice, but an effective one.
With my second pick I wanted to go with physical strength, and the best place to find that was in Samson. I knew that he the same weakness for the ladies as did David, but the power he received from the Lord was too much to pass up. I knew the Devil had already used a pick on Bathsheba, and I practically dared him to use another pick on the same type of player in Delilah.
The Devil wasn’t about to fall into my trap. Instead of going for the obvious choice in Delilah, the Devil filled a need in picking King Saul. This was a surprise, but I knew what he was going after. Saul fell away from the Lord, at one time trying to kill David and at another consulting the witch of Endor. Satan knew that Samson too was corruptible, and was hoping to add to fuel Samson’s corruption with an even greater corruption.
I was beginning to be concerned that the devil had an answer for all picks that I thought were locks, so I considered my third pick carefully. I wanted to go for someone that perhaps did not have the strength and political power of my first two picks, but who was supremely righteous. I settled on Elijah. Elijah was the man, bringing down fire, defeating the followers of Baal and being so special that he got to go to heaven in a whirlwind, as opposed to how the rest of us will do it through death. I knew Elijah was the one who would fill the righteousness gap I had and counter anyone the Devil could bring my way.
The Devil then took his turn, and went in a new direction. He decided to take Baal, a false god, and used Baal to represent all false gods. I thought this silly as Elijah had already proven Baal to be false, and that Baal was going to serve little purpose on the Devil’s team but to show their weakness. But the Devil decided to remind me right there that even though he and I knew that Baal was false, the pull of a false god to many was hard to overcome. This is especially true when that false god seems so much easier and pliable than the one true God. That was going to be a powerful weapon on the Devil’s team.
I scanned the biblical roster, knowing that I had only three spots left and a lot of qualified players to fill those spots. I had yet to fill my need for a utility player, one that could fill holes and be a support to the rest of the team. For that reason I choose Noah. He was a typical multidimensional player, being a craftsman, having a strong faith, bringing in the animal strength, being able to sail and having the wisdom to figure out difficult problems (like sending a bird out to determine when the water was receding). Noah was a good fit for my squad, and I was pleased with the choice.
The Devil then made a move that I should have predicted. He went to the New Testament and choose Thomas. At first I had no idea why he would take a disciple, but then it became clear. In choosing Thomas, he wasn’t taking the disciple part of Thomas. He was focusing (and in fact drafting) the doubt that lay inside Thomas before he saw the risen Lord. The devil drafted doubt, and with it gained a very powerful tool that has troubled man from the moment Eve doubted God and believed the serpent.
After that pick, I was admittedly shaken. I wasn’t sure where to go from there, and I fell into a common trap that afflicts many of today’s fantasy football leagues. It’s known as the run, and it occurs when a new, top position player is taken. Suddenly, everybody else in the draft decides that he or she needs to take a player from that position, and thus a run on that position occurs. This is where I was, recognizing that the Devil had taken a New Testament player, which we had both been ignoring up to that point. I decided I needed to go New Testament as well, and scrambled for the best. I settled upon Saul of Tarsus, otherwise known as Paul. He was a solid player, educated and steeped in the ways of Judaism. He was a man of conviction and service, and I knew he would fit well into the team I had been building. I also felt that he would play solid defense, as he had once been in the service of the enemy and knew the enemies playbook well.
The Devil seemed to expect me to go New Testament, and was not surprised by my pick. He immediately countered with Legion, the so named demon because there were many. Legion’s claim to fame was that he had once faced off with the Lord. I knew that was a bold but somewhat strange move, as the last I had heard Legion was thrown into a pig and sent hurtling towards the sea. Nevertheless, I did not underestimate this pick.
I continued my New Testament run with my fifth pick. I took a dark horse in James, brother of the Lord, believing that he could be a breakout pick for me. Truly James does not have the pop of a Peter or a Lazarus. But I had faith that James could hold his own, and make solid plays that would keep me in the game. The Devil threw back at me his pick of Judas. He smiled his gleaming white smile and suggested that Judas was not only picked because he knew my team’s playbook, but also that he was a betrayer. From then on I would always have to keep in mind that at any point a member of my team could become traitorous and rob me of the trust and hope I had. As he said this, I began to feel uneasy, believing that the fact was I could not trust the team I had created. Doubt and fear had already started to creep into my mind earlier, and now a sense of paranoia and mistrust became their companions. My sixth pick was coming, and I had to make the most of it.
By the time I got my head together from the jolt of the Judas pick, I was already shaking and very uneasy. I had to make the right choice, or everything I was hoping for could fall apart. I had to go big, but at the same time I had to pick someone with little chance of faltering. I decided to choose John. John brought to me a strong skill set, and he would team well with Elijah in prophecy. This was the man that had the vision of Revelation and the only one to whom God entrusted that vision. There was no doubt that he would help me.
I was done picking, and felt uneasy about my team. I know that I had chosen some very powerful biblical players, and that on paper I had a solid team. But I was shaken by whom the Devil had chosen, and the doubt and fear that had crept into me earlier was growing stronger. The stakes were too high for me to have made the wrong decision with one of my picks, and the Devil still had a pick left.
That’s when the Devil made his final pick. I sat with a dreadful anticipation, and the Devil did not disappoint. With a smirk that darkened the entire room, the devil countered my pick of John with the tribulations of Revelation. He poured into his pick all the famine, pestilence, war, disease, fear, sorrow, envy, disgust, loathing, hatred, and loss of all hope that will encompass those times. He directed his last pick at me, and insisted I look upon it and recognize that from this pick there was no escape for me and my team. The devil grinned like a champion, before a play had ever been made.
That is when I felt it. There was nothing I could do to beat his team. We hadn’t even begun the games and he was already victorious. I was without hope, without joy, and without a chance. The future I had desired for my team and the chance of reigning victorious seemed impossible, even though nothing had happened. I hung my head, certain that there was nothing I could do.
And there was nothing I could do. Not on my own anyway. I looked at the Devil, defeated, and begged him to consider adding a seventh pick. I asked him if he would consider a flex spot, perhaps one more player for each of our teams. He didn’t have to agree, but it would be greatly appreciated if he did.
He laughed at my ignorance of his dominance and assured me that one more player for each of our teams would be fine, but insisted that he choose first. I agreed, and without hesitation, the Devil choose death. Plain and simple, the Devil chooses the finality and power of death to play for him. He called it the nail in the coffin for my team, and in all cases he was right.
But I don’t ask for something like the flex spot without having a purpose. Though the devil had put the final nail in my coffin, what he didn’t expect was that I had a crowbar to escape that coffin. I slowly lifted my head, and stared the devil straight in the eyes. I told him that most would consider my circumstances dim, and that he should be congratulated on a nearly perfect draft. But with my seventh pick, I wanted a simple player, one that is unassuming but very powerful. I wanted the grace that comes from Jesus, and allows every man to come to Him for salvation. I wanted the same grace that allows the most hideous among us, in any abhorrent circumstances, to be brought up and out of them, and delivered to Him. I wanted the grace that is only given by Him, and is available for all.
The Devil jumped up and shouted that I was a cheater. He said we agreed that He should not be allowed to be drafted, and that I was out of bounds. But I assured the Devil I wasn’t cheating, and that the grace that Jesus offers is fair game. Grace cannot be denied under any circumstances, because it is available freely to all. The Devil just looked at me, and started twisting one of his rings around his finger. He sat back down, looked over his roster and flipped it over to the blank side. He took out his fountain pen and scribbled something quickly on the back. He then stood up, extending his hand for me to shake. I responded in kind, and he simply said to me “Good draft, but I am going to have to concede the season”. He tossed his roster on the table, turned and left.
I sat down, my heart racing. I was excited and very nervous at that moment, to be sure. I buried my head in my hands for a few moments. When I took it out, I looked around to make sure that he had really gone. Satisfied that the Devil was, I reached over for his roster. Lifting it, I read the words the Devil had scribbled in black ink.
You are not worthy of Grace.
The Devil lost that day, but in defeat he was still nipping at my heals. He wanted to keep me reeling with doubt. But this day I was not in doubt. This day, the devil had been bested. Through grace my draft was saved. Through grace, I was saved.