When The Struggle Defeats The Dream

(excerpt from "Going Deeper With Christ" teaching series, 3/27/2011)

My Junior hear of High School I had the opportunity to play in a state championship football game against the Kingswood Knights from Kingswood, NH. For anyone unfamiliar with HS football, the state championship is the ultimate dream game for any HS team. The championship was what you worked so hard for. It was what made all the hard work worth it. I remember the game quite vividly. Fans surrounded every square foot of the field. Television crews were there to take brief shots to show on the news that night. Bands, cheerleaders, parents, old alumni players and radio announcers. I remember the lockeroom conversation prior to the game. I remember the quiet and serious bus ride to Kingswood. I remember walking out to the field suited up, pumped up, wondering if I would ever get this chance again. It was a dream day.

Go back 2 months, 6 or 7 games prior, to a weekday practice after school. Practices were brutal for me. 2 ½ - 3 hours, hot, tiring, non-stop running, non-stop yelling, non-stop put-downs from coaches who seemed to know only swear words. All I wanted to do some days was take off all my equipment and go jump in the river that ran beside the practice field because it was so physically and mentally strenuous.

I remember on 3 or 4 different practice days the practices became so hard for me that I literally said to myself, “This is my last day playing football. This is not worth it to me.” And as I think about the championship game that we played in Kingswood that year that we lost, and next year’s championship game in Kennett that we won, I think to myself, “How sad it would have been if I let the struggle defeat the dream."

Sometimes life becomes so strenuous for so long that we let the struggle defeat the dream of wholeness. We come to points in our lives where we say, “It’s easier to go jump in the river than it is to keep fighting for the dream”. It is easier to stay the way I am than it is to go through this struggle. I give up. I turn in my pads. I resign from the team. It’s too difficult. And jump in the river we can. Stay the same we can. Remain lame we can; but not if we want to see a championship.

When Jesus asked the lame man in John 5, "Do you want to get well" I believe Jesus knew something about the lame man we don't. After 38 years of lameness I think it is reasonable to assume that the man's 38-year struggle may have defeated his dream of wholeness. It could be that this man's main problem was not his paralyzed body, but his paralyzed will. Perhaps he no longer wanted to get well. The solution to a paralyzed will begins with a gut check from Jesus, "Do you want to get well?"