Little eyes are watching you

A wonderful thing happened this weekend. Football season started. Many of us spend hours watching games and routing on players and teams (Go Vandy! We own those Gamecocks now). We manage player’s stats in an online game called Fantasy Football and we keep this up every weekend until the bowl games get here, where we all sadly turn our attention elsewhere until the next season starts.

Saturday morning I was watching pre-game shows and my attention was drawn to an unusual place. The Florida Gators (I know it’s a dirty word for me too) and a young man named Tim Tebow. Andrea and I have a little in common with this guy. He was homeskewled growing up ;). Tim has been getting A LOT of media attention lately and I have no idea how much pressure that has put on him, but in looking at what he has been up to during this past summer, I’m impressed and inspired.

Tim is the son of a missionary family and has not left his roots behind him to be trampled by the excitement and prestige of football. He spends his time during the summer talking to prison inmates about Jesus and participating in mission trips to help spread the Kingdom around the world. He is positively affecting and infecting all people around him with the Gospel. His football coach Urban Meyer was so inspired that he took his family (wife and three kids) on a mission trip this past summer to the Dominican Republic. They visited orphanages and fed the hungry all while spreading the news of Jesus Christ.

As I read up about this man with a mission, I learned that he has a poster in his room with the following poem on it. I think we all have much to learn from this college student who has a heart for God.

Joel

There are little eyes upon you
and they're watching night and day.
There are little ears that quickly
take in every word you say.

There are little hands all eager
to do anything you do;
And a little boy who's dreaming
of the day he'll be like you.

You're the little fellow's idol,
you're the wisest of the wise.
In his little mind about you
no suspicions ever rise.

He believes in you devoutly,
holds all you say and do;
He will say and do, in your way
when he's grown up just like you.

There's a wide eyed little fellow
who believes you're always right;
and his eyes are always opened,
and he watches day and night.

You are setting an example
every day in all you do;
For the little boy who's waiting
to grow up to be like you.