UPDATE - WEWS Channel 5, did a short story about this piece:
//
Cleveland hasn?t experienced a championship in over fifty years. But our Cleveland Cavaliers are four wins away from winning the NBA Finals. We have a team built of players with steel mill grit and hearts the size of Lake Erie, a coaching staff that is humble yet strategically nasty, not to mention a 2003 graduate of St. Vincent St. Mary High School who happens to be the best and brightest player on the planet.
Although sports aren?t everything, they are something. When sports teams flourish, so too does their city, to some extent anyway. If the Cavs can pull this off, Cleveland will explode. Our local economy has already been feeling a significant bump from regular season sellout crowds at The Q and three rounds of playoff basketball. There?s a playful buzz around the city, and wine and gold seem to be showing up everywhere. And then there?s just the general sense of excitement for the possibility that this may be the year. Eyes are bright, chins are up, and hope is palpable. I?ve even been hearing people end conversations with ?Go Cavs!? and not just with friends, but with strangers as well. As a city, we?re ALL IN.
So what can we the fans do to help our Cleveland Cavaliers bring the Larry O?Brien trophy home? Obviously we can cheer, scream, clap, bite our nails, and high-five as we don the wine and gold in our homes, at the sport bar, inside Quicken Loans Arena, and outside The Q in Gateway Plaza if we?re ticketless, but can we pray for our Cavs? Should we?
Let me start by saying that I don?t think God cares about basketball very much. And I don?t think he cares who wins the 2015 NBA Championship. But, God loves each and every NBA basketball player and each and every NBA coach as his own son, and He wants what is best for each of them and all of them, just as God wants what is best for you and for me.
But the fact that God doesn?t care about who wins the NBA Championship doesn?t mean that we shouldn?t pray for our Cavaliers. In fact, I think it pleases God very much whenever we pray, as prayer
