Kirk Cousins and the Minnesota Vikings are off to a promising start in 2018.
This year’s hottest free agent fired two touchdowns on Sunday as the Vikings won their third straight game, topping the New York Jets to move to 4-2-1 and first in the tightly contested NFC North.
Yet back at home, Cousins has a daily, Biblical reminder of why even the successes of 2018 are fleeting in light of eternity. If that sounds deep, well, it’s because it’s supposed to be.
The former Washington Redskins quarterback has made it clear that he’s in Minnesota with every intention of bringing a title to Vikings Country, and few signal-callers have been as efficient as he has almost halfway through his debut season in purple. Cousins goes to work every day with football on his mind. But he also starts and ends each day at a house that features a tower of 720 stones on his porch, and those stones are a symbol of the quarterback’s eye for things beyond his own lifetime.
As first reported over the summer and profiled this week by ESPN’s Tory Zawacki Roy, Cousins’ 720-stone tower was inspired by “a tool my Bible teacher taught me in high school,” and it represents Psalm 90:12.
“Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.”
The stones are stacked in front of Cousins’ home, the Vikings standout told Roy, to “remind me how brief life is, and how important the time we have here is.”
“In other words, when you have an understanding that life is coming to an end someday, and that we only have so many days? There’s wisdom in that,” he says. “Let’s say I live to 90, that would be a pretty good run. We went month to month, and we added it all up, and it was 720 stones, because I turned 30 this year. Every month I’m going to take out a stone, put it in my pocket, and think, ‘Once this month is over, this is gone. You can’t get it back, it’s gone for good.'”
The result, according to Cousins? In between his best and worst days on the football field, or even away from it, he is challenged to make use of the time he’s been given.
“What impact are you making, not only today, but for eternity?” he told Roy. “What impact are you making to leave a legacy? It’s just a healthy reminder [to] make life about other people, invest in other people, knowing that in the end, that’s a life well-lived.”
A devout Christian who’s repeatedly made public his faith in Jesus and his teachings in the Bible, Cousins will return to the field Sunday for a prime-time showdown with the New Orleans Saints.
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