The Men of Iron Minute
by Chad Zueck | Director of Content Creation
When We Think We Deserve Better
The 1998 NBA Finals are underway on a reasonably warm Utah evening, and this game is fire! Michael Jordan has had another career-defining game, and the Bulls are proving their place in basketball lore. Jordan shakes off his defender and drains a 17-footer with 5.2 seconds to win the series over the grieving and disbelieving Utah Jazz. As the drama unfolded, it was a storybook ending (for Bulls fans). But what if it wasn’t 6′ 7″ Michael Jordan taking that last shot?
What if the coach would have sat Jordan and instead played 6’2″ Guard Randy Brown at that moment? Visualize this. Randy Brown staves off his opponent and shoots his 17-footer, but in this instance, the ball hits the front of the rim, and the Bulls spiral to a crippling loss. The sportscasters would be falling all over themselves in disbelief and judgment. But why? People wouldn’t believe that Randy Brown has earned this opportunity. Sure, he was a decent player, but he was no Air Jordan. I can hear the Bulls fans calling out Coach Jackson and demanding an explanation. This outrage comes from unmet expectations. Hypothetically, they would think Jordan deserved to take that shot (and not Randy Brown). We always want what we think we deserve.
A few years ago, I was enduring a painful season. I wondered how I would make it through seasons like this. What would I do if I got kicked in the faith? Abandon the faith on the whim that I deserved better? Jettison my church as a way of coping with a faith challenge? My mind wandered until I began to see a purpose in the challenges. Instead of writhing in self-pity and deconstructing doubt, I leaned hard into God. I practiced disciplines like solitude, community, bible reading, prayer, and rest to gain a God-like perspective. Man, it made all the difference. To be nostalgic for an effortless, painless faith is to deny God’s purpose for every aspect of life. The late theologian J. I. Packer quipped, “To know that nothing happens in God’s world apart from God’s will may frighten the godless, but it stabilizes the saints.”
Great faith is developed in challenging times when we think that we deserve better, and trust God anyway.
Though life is uncomfortable and unpredictable, God’s faithfulness is not. His ways are consistent and trustworthy. People of faith are not immune to struggle, heartache, and loss. Even so, “An unshakable faith develops when in shaking times a man trusts in his unshakable God.” C. N. Zueck
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Contact our team today to find out how you can become a mentor, find a mentor and be a better man! And DO NOT forget to check out EP. 101 of The Men of Iron Podcast – Don’t Run From Accountability Feat. Garret Barbush (EP. 101)