Not until Peyton Manning retired did fans receive an explanation of the true meaning of his “Omaha” call. Since I live in Omaha, I have always been curious about Manning’s mysterious audible call, which he uses so often. After the audible call got huge, Manning says that people actually offered him money to use a different word instead of Omaha. “I can’t tell you how many solicitations I used to get for alternate words.”

“Omaha was just an indicator word,” Manning explained. “It was a trigger word that meant we had changed the play, there was low time on the clock, and the ball needed to be snapped right now to kind of let my offensive lineman know that ‘Hey, we’d gone to Plan B, there’s low time on the clock.’ It’s a rhythmic three-syllable word, ‘O-ma-ha, set hut.’”

Revelation 4 – Hope in God’s Victory

After John received the letters to the seven churches, he shifted his focus in Chapter 4 to a vision just as mysterious to believers as “Omaha” has been to football fans. His vision began with a glimpse into the throne room of heaven. The goal of his vision was to establish hope in God’s victory over sin through the redemptive work of His Son, Jesus. That’s hard to understand unless you have studied the Old Testament, particularly Ezekiel 1:5-10 and Isaiah 6:1-4, as John had.

John describes what he saw using Biblical language. Because he knew and understood the Bible, he interpreted what he saw in light of what the Bible teaches. Many who read the Bible don’t know the Old Testament well, so they fail to recognize what John saw. This is often called a Biblical or Christian worldview. To have a Biblical worldview, you need to filter your world through the whole Bible. That’s what John did so he could describe things biblically. There are no shortcuts to developing a Christian worldview. You must read, study, memorize, and meditate on the Bible.

The Kingdom Coach and Athlete read, study, memorize, and meditate on the Bible so they can filter their worldview through a Biblical lens.