SEVEN ISN’T JUST A NUMBER AND, IF YOU ARE ONE OF  THE BELIEVERS, IT HAS A DEEPER SPIRITUAL MEANING THE IMAGES SAY IT ALL . . . This Brazilian newspaper captures the mood of their nation with pictures of captain Thiago Silva and David Luiz (left) and a young fan drenched in tears on the night the Samba Boys suffered a 1-7 humiliation in their 2014 World Cup semi-final battle against Germany in Belo Horizonte, the worst defeat suffered by the five-time World Champions in their World Cup history
THE IMAGES SAY IT ALL . . . This Brazilian newspaper captures the mood of their nation with pictures of captain Thiago Silva and David Luiz (left) and a young fan drenched in tears on the night the Samba Boys suffered a 1-7 humiliation in their 2014 World Cup semi-final battle against Germany in Belo Horizonte, the worst defeat suffered by the five-time World Champions in their World Cup history

THE IMAGES SAY IT ALL . . . This Brazilian newspaper captures the mood of their nation with pictures of captain Thiago Silva and David Luiz (left) and a young fan drenched in tears on the night the Samba Boys suffered a 1-7 humiliation in their 2014 World Cup semi-final battle against Germany in Belo Horizonte, the worst defeat suffered by the five-time World Champions in their World Cup history

Sharuko On Saturday
ON February 4, 2013, Super Bowl XLVII — an American football showdown between the Baltimore Ravens and the San Francisco 49ers — exploded into life in New Orleans with 108.7 million Americans tuning in to watch.

A 30-second advertisement on CBS TV cost a staggering $4 million and viewership interest soared significantly, in the final six minutes of that titanic battle, as a record American television viewership of 164.1 million people tuned in to watch.

The Ravens, who came into that match as underdogs, had somehow defied the odds to build a 28-6 lead early in the third quarter, and looked well in control, until a lengthy power outage — which stopped play for 34 minutes — disrupted their concentration and opened a window for the 49ers to stage a remarkable comeback which spiked interest in the pay-per-view television viewership.

After largely being outplayed, following the restoration of power, the Ravens eventually found a way to hold off the 49ers’ late charge to win the battle 34-31 and hand their opponents their first Super Bowl defeat in six appearances.

Significantly, that game came just five days after CNN, and a number of international media organisations, published the findings of a survey conducted in the United States which found out that a quarter of Americans, which is one in every four, believed God has a say in the outcome of sporting events.

The survey, conducted by the Public Religion Research Institute, found out that among non-white Christians and white evangelicals, 40 percent and 38 percent, believed God had a say in determining results in sport and so did 29 percent of Catholics and 19 percent of white mainline Protestants.

The institute’s chief executive, Robert Jones, said a significant number of people “have a very personal view of God, a God that is very active in their daily lives and very concerned about the things that matter to them (and given) sports are one of the things that matter, it stands to reason that God is playing an important role.”

The events of that night in New Orleans have left a lasting impression on the lives of millions of people and some will tell you it’s not just a coincidence the victorious team that day, the Baltimore Ravens, scored exactly the same number of points (34) as the exact number of minutes (34) that were lost to that power outage.

THE STORY OF RAY LEWIS

AND THE POWER OF FAITH

Others have pointed to the Ravens’ triumphant linebacker, Ray Lewis, playing in his final game of his 17-year National Football League professional career, as an example of what belief can reap you after he became the voice that regularly thanked God for their incredible adventure that season.

“God doesn’t make mistakes. One thing about God’s will, you can never see God’s will before it happens. You can only see it at the end. For His will to happen this way, I could never ask for anything else,’’ Lewis told reporters after his Ravens defeated the New England Patriots in the final battle for a place in the Super Bowl.

And, after his team’s Super Bowl success, Lewis told reporters: “When God is for you, who can be against you?’’

But, 13 years earlier, it was very different for Lewis.

He was arrested, together with two of his colleagues in Atlanta after two people — Jacinth Baker and Richard Lollar — were stabbed to death in a fight that broke outside a nightclub on January 31, 2000, after a Super Bowl XXXIV party.

Lewis and his friends — Reginald Oakley and Joseph Sweeting — were questioned by Atlanta police and 11 days later the three men were charged with murder and aggravated-assault.

Just two weeks into the trial, Lewis’ lawyers — Don Samuel and Ed Garland — negotiated a plea agreement for their client where the murder charges against the athlete were dropped in exchange he testified against his friends, Oakley and Sweeting, while Lewis also entered a guilty plea to a lesser charge of obstructing the course of justice.

The judge sentenced him to a 12-month probation, which meant he could continue his NFL career, with the league handing him a $250 000 fine, the highest possible in the circumstances.

The duo was acquitted of the murder charges in June 2000 and, until now, no other suspects have been arrested for the killings while the white suit Lewis was wearing on the night of the two murders has never been found.

Exactly a year after that chilling Atlanta incident, on January 28, 2001, Lewis became the first linebacker — since Chuck Howley in 1971 — to be named Super Bowl Most Valuable Player after leading the Ravens, the only team he played for throughout his professional career, to a 34-7 victory over the New York Giants.

Somehow, fate made sure that — in his Super Bowl XXXV triumph in 2001 and in his final professional match at Super Bowl XLVII in 2013, which he also won — Lewis and his Baltimore Ravens would score exactly the same number of points (34) in success stories spread 12 years apart.

Lewis was recently told by Shannon Sharpe, a former American football star-turned-television-presenter, in an interview later broadcast on CBS TV, that families of the two murdered men can’t understand why he is idolised by millions of fans when they believe he has been hiding a lot of information about those killings.

Asked if he had any words for those families, Lewis responded, “God has never made a mistake. That’s just who He is, you see . . . To the family, if you knew, if you really knew the way God works, He doesn’t use people who commit anything like that for His Glory.”

THE SEVEN-GOAL MASSACRE THAT HAS BEEN THE TALK OF TOWN

The inevitability that the strange nine-goal domestic Premiership game, in which Bantu Rovers massacred a hapless Yadah Stars 7-2 last Saturday, would spark both a social and mainstream media storm — which has been raging for the past week — was as predictable as it was very normal.

Ironically, some people who still find fascination in the Green Machine’s seven-goal mauling of the Glamour Boys 30 years ago, suddenly find it nauseating that a seven-goal hammering of Yadah Stars — just seven days ago — shouldn’t fascinate us all week.

And, as often happens in our deeply polarised society, the events at Luveve opened a window for some to tarnish the reputations of others and, for giving Prophet Magaya a platform to defend his decision for his team to play that match without its coaches — as wrong as it might have been — and I found myself being accused by some as fighting in his corner.

Even in an era where murderers are given the right for a fair trial, to be represented by a lawyer despite pleading guilty to their evil acts and can, after conviction, still be beneficiaries of extenuating circumstances as per the prerogative of a judge, we still find ourselves trapped in a society where some people believe those they don’t agree with should never be afforded a medium to be heard.

The provision of such a platform is translated, in their flawed judgment powered by both fury and conspiracy theories, as evidence that someone has been manipulated because all they want to hear, in their shell of darkness is nothing, but severe criticism of the person they believe is wrong and should never, in their world, be put to his defence.

And, in the prophet’s case, it’s even complicated because there are some who don’t agree with his ministry and have repeatedly dismissed him as someone who isn’t a true Man of God and they gang up, finding ammunition in his team’s hour of turmoil, to take a dig at him and anyone who gives him a platform to say something in defence of his decisions — whether they are right or wrong — is caught in the crossfire of their venom.

Such is their fury that, blinkered by their refusal to see anything save for the yearning of a hurricane of criticism for this man, anyone who dares give him a platform to say something is compromised by a relationship, in their world, only built by improper conduct.

What a shame!

I always wonder how Will Ripley, the only CNN correspondent allowed by the North Korean leaders to get into their country, interview them and report from that country was a Zimbabwean and all the insults which would have been thrown in his direction for allegedly having been bought by those North Koreans to tell their side of the story.

But, that’s the way life is, isn’t it?

For me, what matters, has been this incredible spiritual journey which the events at Luveve last Saturday helped me undertake, this week, as I searched for answers, found some fascinating links and read some powerful material, including British author Ben Arogundande’s interesting piece “Whose Side Is God On In Sports?’’

Ray Lewis will tell you the God we believe in, the One whom we pray to, can speak to us through sport and that’s why Lionel Messi always thanks the heavens every time he scores.

I have spent the whole week unable to get answers to questions I have been asking myself — is it just a coincidence that in those two Super Bowl matches which Lewis won in 2001 and 2013, his triumphant Baltimore Ravens side scored 34 points in both matches and if you add THREE and FOUR you get SEVEN?

Is it just a mere coincidence that when the time came for the Brazilians — a nation that has received more blessings than any other when it comes to football in this world in terms of talent and success in the World Cup — to be reminded that they are, just like all of us, mere mortals, it arrived in the form of a SEVEN-goal thrashing in their home World Cup with the grand stature of Christ The Redeemer overseeing their humiliation?

Is it just a mere coincidence that the Brazilian SEVEN-goal massacre — their worst defeat in a World Cup game — would come at the hands of a team, Germany, whose name is made up of SEVEN letters, in the year 2014, and if you add TWO plus ZERO plus ONE plus FOUR you also get the number SEVEN?

Is it just a coincidence that five of the goals that Germany scored, in that first half, came in the first 29 minutes and if you subtract TWO from NINE you get SEVEN, that the identity of the scorer of that fifth goal, KHEDIRA, has a name that has SEVEN letters while the name of the humiliated Brazilian coach, SCOLARI, also has SEVEN letters.

The SEVEN goals Germany scored that day took their World Cup tally to 223 goals and, if you add TWO plus TWO plus THREE you also get the number SEVEN.

There is a reason there are SEVEN days in a week.

And the Bible tells us the Lord would discipline Israel up to SEVEN-FOLD if it refused to obey Him (Leviticus 26:18); Jesus mentions SEVEN woes on the unrepentant in Matthew 23; there are SEVEN trumpets announcing judgments by God (Revelation 8:6); there are SEVEN angels pouring out the wrath of God in the Book of Revelation (16:1); there are SEVEN pairs of clean animals that were received in the Ark (Genesis 7:2) and there were SEVEN angels on the lampstand in the tabernacle (Exodus 25:37).

We are humans, that’s the bottom line, and — now and again even in sport — we get such reminders and for cricketer Donald Bradman, the greatest batsman who ever lived, that reminder came in his final innings when, needing just four runs to finish his career with a Test batting average of 100 in what would have been a representation of purity, he was dismissed for a duck (ZERO), bowled second ball by leg spinner Eric Hollies in the fifth and final Test of that 1948 Ashes series at London’s Oval.

It meant Bradman retired with a batting average of 99.94 runs.

His name, Bradman, of course, has SEVEN letters.

EVEN THE GREATEST NEEDED

A TOUCH OF FAITH

In exactly three weeks’ time, the world will mark the first anniversary of the death of a man widely considered the finest athlete who ever lived, legendary boxer Muhammad Ali, whose combination of a streak of arrogance, a flood of confidence and a touch of brilliance led him to describe himself as “The Greatest.’’

On June 4, last year, Ali — whose athletic prowess had an enduring impact on this world like no other athlete before, and after him in a remarkable journey that saw him being crowned three-time world heavyweight champion — died at a Phoenix hospital, where he was being treated for respiratory complications, in a final conclusion to a 32-year battle with Parkinson’s disease.

His death came exactly a dozen years after he published an autobiography, ‘THE SOUL OF A BUTTERFLY’, which he co-authoured with his daughter Hana Yaseem Ali and which gave a very powerful account of his life-long search for God.

“When I was about nine-years-old, I would wake up in the middle of the night and go outside to wait for an angel or a revelation from God,” Ali writes in his book.

“I would sit on the front porch, look up at the stars and wait for a message. I never heard anything, but I never lost faith, because the feeling was so strong in my heart.”

Ali always believed his faith in God would always ensure he would eventually prevail, even when faced massive odds like fighting an unbeaten, younger and more powerful opponent like George Foreman in their ‘Rumble In The Jungle’ showdown in Kinshasa in 1974.

“Allah has power over all things. If you believe in Him…even George Foreman will look like a baby,’’ Ali said.

“God’s got me here for something. I can feel it. I was born for everything that I’m doing now.”

And, true to his beliefs, Ali somehow weathered a barrage of vicious punches unleashed in a seven-round pounding by an opponent inspired by a streak of brutality and, from the depths of despair where a lot of mere mortals would have long surrendered from that infliction of pain that smashed the boundaries of what a human being can take, he found a way to draw strength from somewhere in the eighth round to knock out the champion.

“It’s a lack of faith that makes people afraid of meeting challenges and I believe in myself. My wealth is my knowledge of self, love and spirituality,’’ Ali noted.

And, years later, as he battled the effects of Parkinson’s, Ali — as he had done throughout a life in which he rose from humble surroundings to become the greatest athlete the world had ever know, and might ever know — still refused to let his faith be shaken away.

“Every step of the way I believe that God has been with me. And, more than ever, I know that he is with me now,’’ he said.

And, that was The Greatest himself, and — somehow — he had to die aged 74 (THAT NUMBER SEVEN AGAIN), and the first name his parents gave him, which he later dropped, was Cassius (AGAIN THOSE SEVEN LETTERS).

How many goals did Bantu FC score last Saturday — SEVEN. How many letters do we get from Bantu FC — SEVEN. How many letters do we get from the team they defeated Yadah FC — SEVEN, of course.

 

TO GOD BE THE GLORY!

Come on United!!!!!!!!!!!

Rashfoooord!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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