Busted Brackets
It all begins this week.
March Madness.
The most wonderful time of the year. Well… one of them, anyway.
Brackets. Buzzer beaters. Cinderella stories. And the annual tradition of millions of people filling out brackets — convinced they’ve cracked the code and hoping they know more than they actually do. By Sunday evening of the first weekend… half the brackets in America are already busted.
And then, of course, the reactions — hope, heartbreak, and the occasional “you’ve got to be kidding me.”
My brothers and cousins take this very seriously. We even have a traveling trophy that gets passed around each year to the winner. Right now, it’s sitting at my house. I should probably enjoy it while I can — chances are, it’ll be moving on in a few weeks.
All part of the fun.
Here’s the thing about brackets.
No matter how carefully you fill them out, there are always surprises. A top seed goes down. An underdog catches fire. A team no one expected suddenly finds itself dancing deep into the tournament. It happens every year.
I suppose we’d all admit that life works a lot like that. We fill out mental brackets. We make predictions about how things are going to turn out. We picture how the story is supposed to go.
And then something happens that reminds us we don’t actually control the outcome. Plans fall through. Setbacks come. And sometimes — unexpectedly — something good breaks through that we never saw coming.
Maybe that’s where faith comes in.
Faith is trusting God’s faithfulness — even when the bracket you filled out for your life gets completely busted.
And the season of Lent has a way of reminding us of that. It loosens our grip on the illusion that we’re in control and invites us to trust that even when our plans fall apart, God is still faithful — the One whose “steadfast love endures forever.” (Psalm 136:1)
Even in the upsets.
Even in the surprises.
Even when our brackets get busted.
Much love,
Pastor Gregg
