How to Win Your NCAA Tourney Pool

As you hurriedly fill out those March Madness brackets, I want to share a few recent theological musings . . .

I am suddenly fascinated with the statement: "God does not care who wins the NCAA tournament. God has more important things to worry about." I am sure that at one time or another I myself have made just such an utterance. Surely in a world seemingly full of war, terror, starvation, and disaster, God should be attending to the sufferings of the people and not some ridiculous game, right?

But doesn't that statement imply a limitation on God's providential abilities? We surely do not believe that if God is busy watching a basketball game things go on behind God's back. It cannot be the case that God can only handle one thing at a time, or else all hell would break lose. Rather, perhaps God does care who wins the tourney. What we may be trying to express when we deride God's providential hold over sports is that God will most likely not cater to our personal emotional attachments to specific teams. God surely has a larger purpose in mind for basketball.

So, I guess that if any of us were intelligent enough to see what God intended to accomplish through March Madness, that person would be able to fill out a flawless bracket. Of course, that person would then be as smart as God, not to mention very rich.

PS> If anybody calls me a Calvinist in a comment, I am going to vomit.