Trophies for participation?

Maybe you read or heard about this yesterday.

Pittsburgh Steelers linebacker James Harrison announced Sunday that he was giving back his 8- and 6-year-old son's "participation" trophies because they hadn't earned them. A ruckus ensued. I have to tell you, I think he was dead on, and that message shouldn't be discounted simply because he was the one delivering it.

"While I am very proud of my boys for everything they do and will encourage them till the day I die, these trophies will be given back until they EARN a real trophy," Harrison said in a post on Instagram. "I'm sorry I'm not sorry for believing that everything in life should be earned and I'm not about to raise two boys to be men by making them believe that they are entitled to something just because they tried their best."

Here's what I know, from a pastoral standpoint as well as a, ahem, former athlete.

Life isn't always fair.

You can work your hardest, try your best, expend every ounce of energy you have and sometimes things just don't work out the way you hoped or imagined. That's just the way things go. Teams I played on finished out of the championship round more often than not. We never won a state championship. As far as I know, my high school still hasn't. That made the year we went unbeaten all the more sweet in summer baseball.

Yet somewhere along the way, someone had the misguided notion that kids should live in a la-la land where everything is perfect, there are no hardships or heartbreaks, and you get a shiny trophy or a pretty blue ribbon just for being you. I'm not sure where that came from.

There's time enough to get acquainted with reality, the thinking goes. In the meantime, children should be praised and encouraged, reminded at every turn how wonderful they are.

No wonder study after study has shown that millennials, the first of the trophy generations, are stressed out and depressed. They were sold a bill of goods when they were kids, and discovering that the harsh realities of life apply to them, too, had to have been like a punch to the gut.

Everything you get in life is earned -- except one thing.

That one thing? 

God's grace. That's where we go a different direction. The Apostle Paul talks about receiving the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, "the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day -- and not only to me, but also to all who have longed for his appearing."

What did he do to earn that grace, nothing on his own. He just held on to the grace given to him by a loving God.

Then and only then should we be given trophies for doing absolutely nothing. 

And there, I've tied James Harrison to Almighty God. Didn't think I had it in me.