No Basketball on Sundays

By Brad Green

I eagerly glanced down at the basketball summer league schedule, and saw to my dismay that 8 of the 12 games were on Sunday. What was I going to do? I don’t play on Sunday.

I looked across the room at my talented teammate. I had worked so hard to win the starting forward position, and if I didn’t play, I was going to lose the job to him. But I had decided a long time ago to never play on Sunday, and that wasn’t about to change now.

The coach finished up his speech by saying, “Congratulations on making the team. The first practice is tomorrow at five. See you then.”

The team slowly filed out the door as I sat nervously in my seat. I knew my course of action, but that wasn’t going to make this any easier. I hesitantly walked up to the front of the room and said, “Hey coach, I have a little problem.”

“What’s that, Brad?” he asked.

“Well, I was looking at the schedule, and I saw that there were eight games on Sunday. I won’t be able to play in those games,” I said with a shaky voice.

“How come?” he asked with a surprised look on his face.

“It’s a religious thing. I believe in keeping the Sabbath day holy and part of that is not playing sports on Sunday,” I responded, feeling a little awkward with the situation.

“Okay, well listen. I would still love to have you for the other games—that is if you still want to play,” he said with a smile.

“I would love to,” I said, and we shook hands as if to seal the agreement. I turned and walked out the door, feeling less awkward and more satisfied.

True, I wasn’t going to play for most of the league games and I might lose my starting position, but I felt good all the same. If I hadn’t made the decision early that I was never going to play on Sunday, I might have chosen differently. But I knew I would be blessed for keeping the Lord’s commandments. I confidently walked away from that room knowing that everything was going to be all right.