Finding Real Life in Fantasy Football

So, there's a girl in my fantasy football league. Yeah, that's right. The one last bastion of pure, unadulterated machoness in my life has been invaded. The one place where men can truly be men has been corrupted. I feel like our treehouse with the "No Girls Allowed!" sign has been torn down to make way for a tea party with stuffed animals.

Will we post less immature smack? Will we link to less hilarious Web articles? Will we start finding the message board invaded by pictures of puppies or, even worse, photos of the couple—the girl and our whipped puppy-dog friend who invited her?

For those of you in fantasy leagues, you understand my predicament. For those of you who refrain from such nerdy activities, let me explain. Fantasy leagues, for me and a lot of other guys, are the best way to keep in touch with old friends. I've got a long-running league with my high school buddies and a league with friends from my old job. It's how I keep up with a lot of my best buds, how I stay in contact and how I retain that feeling of male camaraderie with them.

Why do we have to play such a silly thing as fantasy sports to keep up with one another? Why can't we just use Facebook, e-mail or—dare I say it—the telephone?

I think the answer lies in C.S. Lewis' book, The Four Loves. In his fascinating chapter on the love between friends, Lewis writes that "friendship" is a "side-by-side" love—as opposed to "romance," which is more of a "face-to-face" love. Your friends are almost always people who have things in common with you or interests similar to yours.

You might find that you both like a certain band, sports team or TV show. You might find that you're both at the same stage of life or have similar political opinions. You might find that you're both Christians who want to grow in maturity.

Either way, friendships between men usually develop because they're focused on something else. You are side-by-side with your friends looking at something or talking about something. The funny part is that after a while, these conversations about other things turn out to be the glue in what is becoming a profound affection between you and other guys.

Even if you're talking about something else, the relationship is growing and maturing. That's why men aren't as good with things like straight phone calls or e-mails; but when we're talking about football and gathering around it, we do it with passion and have ourselves a blast.

The key for Christian men, and this is certainly a challenge in my life, is to make sure that after we develop those relationships, we don't leave them at the surface level. We should take them deeper. Jesus calls us to cultivate meaningful relationships with guys who will make us accountable and honest toward each other. We need to be like iron sharpening iron, as the oft-quoted Proverbs 27:17 says. It's not our natural tendency, but it's something that can make all the difference in our lives.

This isn't a challenge for us just with our Christian friends; it holds true with our non-Christian ones too. If we don't get past that surface-level conversation with our non-Christian buddies, we'll never be able to share about more important things, such as our relationship with Jesus.

It's funny that talking about something as trivial as fantasy football is often the glue that leads to something more important down the line. Let's make sure we're not stopping at the shallow parts, though—but pushing more closely together. And, for us, this can happen without posting pictures of puppies.