GUEST POST – Amber Michaelis

(Note: Amber graduated this year, was captain of “By Faith” (St Louis TFC). She is a great friend of the “host” of this blog (Jack Hager) which does not mean I agree with everything she says or writes…we are brother-and-sister in Christ, but not identical twins. I read this on her facebook page and asked permission to publish here. If you would like to contribute an article to this blog, do so by emailing me – jack.hager@gmail.com.) Please leave your comments on anything Amber writes…the purpose of this blog is interaction among quizzers, coaches, staff.

I LOVE BIBLE QUIZZING!!!
by Amber Michaelis, Captain, “By Faith”

Bible Quizzing… Some people like it, but most people love it. If you know me, you know that I love it even more than most people. I love everything about it. It’s a lot of fun to me to spend hundreds of hours over months and months memorizing literally tons of verses and the thousands of questions that go with them. I take a ridiculous amount of pleasure in thinking of combos and totaling up stats. I wish I could talk strategy and be under the intense pressure of Nationals multiple times a year. Challenging for my team is like standing up for my family in battle. Team spirit is one of my favorite things. Pretty much everything I own I have in the color orange. All of these things make quizzing fantastic, but the best thing about it is how the Word changes me.

Some times I can’t see it. I don’t always realize how much the Spirit uses Scripture in my life after I’ve taken the time to memorize it. But looking back I see it clearly. I would be a completely different person without quizzing, and not just that my extra curricular activities would be different, but now my heart and mind have been made new. I’m not who I was. Not that words saved me, but by the Spirit, the living Word has and is still changing me.

Maybe you’ve had some people in your life who you’ve look up to. Though you didn’t know them very well at first, later, once you got to know them, you realized that they aren’t who you thought they were. It’s disappointing isn’t it?? Then when it happens multiple times, you start to catch on and realize, “Hmmm… I can’t really trust anyone because everyone is fake.” I don’t know if that’s happened to you, but it’s happened to me. However, this week at Nationals, in the middle of the crazy schedule, when we were lacking in sleep, our minds were exhausted from studying, and we were not doing as well as we had hoped, I saw the hearts of some people that I’ve come to highly respect.

I saw Siege on Saturday who, at the last moment of a quiz, took a 2nd instead of 1st, by ten points. Some from the team got together to pray immediately after the quiz and I went to join them, supposing they were trying to recover from the way it turned out. To my great surprise, they weren’t praying about themselves. They weren’t even thinking about the loss. They were praying for encouragement for Riven who lost (by a lot) and took 3rd. They prayed for God to bless them, lift them up, and allow them to do well in the next quiz so that they could move back up. Those are the types of things that change my life.

I saw another team on Saturday afternoon, (when a loss meant your team was done for the year) who was praying FOR the opposing teams everytime the other team would win a jump. And my coaches, man…. What awesome leaders to be under. When you are as competitive as By Faith is and you take a third to teams you never expected to lose to, it’s crazy awesome to see in the next quiz my coach start out by praying, “Father, we thank You for the third. We want Your will to be done. This is for Your glory, not ours. Keep us humble. Amen.” That’s the kind of person I want to be like. Wow.

I must admit though… Whether you choose to see it or shut your eyes to it, there are bias quizmasters. There are teams that cheat. Some people will lie if it means they can be on stage, beat a top team, or save themselves from an error. There are people who are jerks just because, for whatever reason, they don’t like By Faith. But through all these things I love quizzing even more!

Yes. I love quizzing even when quizzers lie, and when quizmasters are unfair. Because I know that my struggle is not against flesh and blood. When trials come, so does God’s grace and opportunity. Grace for God to change my heart and opportunity for me to show it. Just like we don’t fight fire with fire, we don’t fight sin with sin. Fire is put out with water, and “streams of living water” flow from within us. God judges the heart. One of my teammates said this in a prayer at Nationals and it really stuck with me… “God we would rather be humble and with You, than proud and against You, even if that means losing. Your will be done.”

I love quizzing. I love the competition, the team work, the struggles, the wins, the defeats, the perseverance it takes, and the sacrifice it requires. But most of all I love the Spirit who uses the Word and the people to change my life. Thank you God so much for Bible Quizzing!