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Good morning. As Alan Shearer said in his commentary: that walk to the ball for a penalty shoot out is the longest walk of your life. It was for the whole Nation last night as football failed to come home. Deep disappointment dappled the pride that the England Team has merited throughout the Tournament. Meanwhile the streets of Rome have seldom seen such a frenzy of happiness since conquering Emperors marched through the Eternal City! ‘Happiness’ was one of the goals that Gareth Southgate named in pursuit of the championship. And although the ultimate prize was denied us, the England Team unleashed a torrent of happiness along the way with every successive win. In Dan Rohan’s reports he’s talked of ‘the unifying power’ of football. We’ve seen it in this and every country, not least now in Italy with its 20 different regions and 66 Governments since 1945. Here, this unifying power has brought together north and south, cities and counties. It has entwined different ethnicities. One of the modern attractions of the so-called Beautiful Game is the dazzling diversity of the England Team. For me Raheem Sterling and Harry Kane hugging each other sends out a signal as powerful as the bended knee that it’s possible for black and white to take pride in each other’s background and talents. It also shows that unity, the destiny of unifying power, is not all about being the same and monochrome. It’s about different colours of the one human race enjoying both their own and the polychrome. In fact, the sign of tyranny is when one leader or group tries to eliminate difference and reduce everyone to the same. But marbled into the human heart is a desire to be happy through being free to be yourself, and out of that treasury to make your own contribution to the whole. For Christians that diversity starts with God who’s been revealed as three diverse personalities yet each equally divine, three persons and One God – the unifying power who entered the fray of the world to reconcile warring factions. Of course, the objection to this comparison is that what really unites a team and its fans is having competitors to beat! I won’t deny it! But the spiritual analogy doesn’t fail. The unifying power of God does have a competitor, a common enemy. Evil and injustice. And, although they’re a constant threat to human happiness, we’re forever hopeful they’ll never have the last hurrah.