When World Cup champion Lionel Messi talks, millions, perhaps billions, of people around the world listen intently to what he has to say.
So when he praises God and gives Him thanks for the gift of being arguably one of, if not the, greatest player at the sport of soccer of all time, it exposes people around the world to his testimony on the goodness of God.
Speaking to Argentinian podcaster Juan Pablo Varsky on the “Clank” podcast, Messi described it felt like God gave him “a gift” that he had to use to his full potential.
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“It’s very clear to me that I was born like this because God chose me,” Messi says.
“It was a gift He gave me. I tried to take advantage of it, I did everything possible to squeeze the most out of it. The truth is, although I did many things, I did nothing to become the player that I already was when I was little,” he adds.
This echoes the sentiment found in the popular Bible passage Jeremiah 29:11, when God was talking to His prophet, but this lesson applies to each and every human ever created:
For I know the plans that I have for you, says the Lord, plans for peace and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.
God says in the following verses that He has done this so that we may enter into relationship with Him, and that He resides with us as our one and only God.
But we must look for God, the verses say, and that is exactly what Messi did in the lead up to his World Cup victory that had eluded him for most of his exceptional career, as reported by Premiere Christian News.
“I asked God, as I have done all my life in everything,” Messi shares. “Even more so at that moment… I didn’t ask my grandmother or Diego [Maradona], but I did ask God, as always. I knew and sensed that God had something in store for me and it was at a special moment, almost at the end of my career and closing the whole circle of my professional career.
“I thank Him every day of my life for this and for everything He has always given me. I can’t ask Him for anything more because thanks to Him I have everything,” he continues.
We can all take a lesson from one of the world’s premiere athletes, and search, ask and thank God in all things which we are involved in, just as Paul exhorts us to do in 1 Thessalonians 5:18:
In everything give thanks, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.
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James Lasher is Staff Writer for Charisma Media.
