The "We're Number One" sign is another widely accepted and understood gesture. In fact, you can save the effort and energy to form the gesture yourself thanks to a man by the name of Geral Fauss. Geral is the inventor or designer of the foam finger. A high school industrial arts teacher in Texas, he designed the #1 Foam Finger in 1978 after experimenting with a plywood model (too heavy) and a paper model (too fragile). Our lives have been forever changed and we no longer have to exert the effort to form the "We're Number One" sign ourselves.
If you have played or been around sports and particularly football the "four fingers" gesture should be a familiar one. There is much discussion and debate over where the practice originated. Alabama fans claim Bear Bryant started it. Miami Hurricane fans argue that it was Jimmy Johnson and Arkansas fans say it started in 1964 with the Razorbacks (featuring a player by the name of Jimmy Johnson). Wherever it started and by whom, it is commonplace in most games today. The sign indicates the players' belief and understanding that a game is won in that crucial final period. True fans and players use the sign as a symbol that they own that last quarter.
That crucial final period!
Many of us today are in a final quarter. For some it is the final quarter of life itself, but for others it can be the final quarter of a job, a task, or a situation. Whatever it is in you, know that how you play out the final quarter is extremely important. The writer of Hebrews notes the importance to running the race to the end in Heb 12:1 "Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us."
You may be tired. You may be hurting. You may want to just quit or coast, but it is important to remain faithful to the end. For a company, there is nothing worse than an employee who just bides his time toward his final days. For a track runner, you want to see her straining all the way to the finish line.
Seth Godin sums it up well in his blog:
It's not enough to finish the checklist, to hurriedly do the last three steps and declare victory. In fact, the last coat of polish and the unhurried delivery of worthwhile work is valued all out of proportion to the total amount of effort you put into the project.
We need to make sure, whatever our current final period is, we are not just calling it in or going through the motions. Rather let us give our best and make sure we own that last quarter for the glory of God!
