Are you old school?  I ask that question as I watch pro football games. Commentators use the term as they discuss a player’s talent, attitude, and contribution to his team. When you tune into sports talk radio, you will hear intense dialogue, men sharing passionately about the play of their favorite players and teams. They often refer to players as old school. Could it be evoking memories of players of old, stirring a longing for the past, especially their youth?

As an NFL sports fan, I know enough to keep informed and to converse with others. I’m even in a fantasy football league with some of the guys in our building. For some it borders on idolatry. But I try to keep it in perspective; it is simply a pastime for me. Even so, I wonder why these die-hard fans use the term old school so often. Do certain players model character that is missing in our day?

Gary Sheffield wrote that Green Packers wide receiver Davante Adams is old school for this comment: “I hate everyone that I play against.” “Although it’s overblown how buddy-buddy athletics are today, “notes Sheffield, “[Adams] is having none of that culture. He spoke this morning about how much he hates everyone he plays against…We’d like to see more quotes like these from everyone so we can get back to believing players take losing as personal as we do.”

If I’m understanding this correctly, Sheffield would like to see more passion in football players that verges on hatred of the opponent, rather than the “buddy-buddy” mentality he encounters on his sports beat. For him, though, old school carries more of a negative connotation.

I identify somehow with old school, but primarily as a positive longing in the hearts of men admiring the exceptional performance in a man competing with other men. Pro scouts talk about a prospect as “a character person.” This is more the exception then the rule. To get a positive grade for “character” is seen as an achievement. 

So, what exactly is old school? It certainly points to a player being exceptional and even unique. I would like to be considered old school when it comes to my walk with Jesus. I know that I am “surrounded by…a great cloud of witnesses” (Heb. 12:1) who are definitely old school.  They all followed Jesus, who is “the same yesterday and today and forever.”  So as followers of Jesus, we might want to be called old school.

First, if hating your enemy is old school, as Sheffield seems to believe, I don’t want to be identified with that attitude. The old can become the new. The old has died, and I am a new man in Christ. He gives me grace to compete but also care.

Second, old school refers to the exceptional character of a person. It seems to highlight the attitude of one who “marches to the beat of a different drummer.”  I want to be that way. “Jesus said, “By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another” (John 13:34).

Third, old school can refer to the admired performance of a player. He might not be the most talented, but he works hard at his game – like a “blue collar guy.”  I want to be “all in” for Jesus, not necessarily polished, but sincere.

Fourth, while being old school, I sincerely pray that God will give me the discernment and wisdom to be relevant in sharing the good news of Jesus.

If that’s what old school means, I’m in. How about you?

Mere Orthodoxy interviewed Ben and Jenna Storey about their new book, “Why We Are Restless: On the Modern Quest for Contentment.”  While restlessness has always been a part of the human condition, the authors point out it has taken on “a distinctive and particularly troubling character in modern times.”

Augustine said famously, “our hearts are restless until they rest in you.”  His restlessness is contrary to modern restlessness, which the authors say is more like “agitated motion without direction.” Augustine was searching for ultimate meaning and purpose in God. In our day, it is simply assumed that we cannot find fulfillment in God. We are suspicious of that idea…

The modern mind “seeks diversion from itself, rather than attending seriously and persistently to existential questions,” such as “Who am I?” and “Why am I here?”  Could this be why we are unhappy? The book focuses on “the restlessness of the mind that tries and fails to find happiness in a distinctly modern way. The focus is on self – not on building a relationship with the transcendent God.

The authors coin the term “immanent contentment” to represent a view of “happiness with no center – a pleasantly various kind of happiness.”  If we limit life to “the immanent frame” it will fail on this delusion.  In contrast, Augustine’s search for happiness was what Jesus called “the one thing needful” (Luke 10:38-42). Happiness is found outside of self.

The authors hold, “If we’re honest with ourselves both about the depth of our miseries and the height of our aspirations, we begin an anguished quest” for answers to the longings of the human soul.  Too much attention to the immanent needs in our life distract us from “the fundamental question of why we find ourselves on this planet.” 

The authors hope readers of their book will “learn to exchange pointless busyness for a pointed quest.”  “We need,” they stress, “to be more ruthless about the question of how we commit our time, separating serious things that deserve our attention from distractions that might be pleasant enough but are not the answers to the question of a life.” 

Men, we are restless because we have a longing for God. James Houston reminds us, “The unsatisfied longing for God is what drives human beings above all else.”  Augustine noted, “Longing is the heart’s treasury.”  He went on to say, “The whole life of the good Christian is a holy longing. What you desire ardently, as yet you do not see…by withholding of the vision, God extends the longing; through longing he extends the soul, by extending it he makes room in it…Let us long because we are to be filled…that is our life, to be exercised by longing.”

Men, I encourage you: taste, feel, experience, and cultivate your longing for God. Don’t be afraid of your deepest desires and passions. That is how we are wired. We have been lied to and tricked by the enemy, to either neglect or disavow our deepest desires. Open your heart to God. Don’t just think about God; express your deepest longings to him. Ask the Lord to help straighten out the tangled mess you may have made of your passions.

Years ago, as I began to befriend my deepest longings, I found much comfort in the Psalms. They express the full range of desire before God. For example, in Psalm 42:1-2 we read, “As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.”  Remember: He longs as well for relationship with you.