Michael Jordan is my favorite athlete of all time. To me there is much evidence to prove that he is the greatest basketball player to ever lace up a pair of high tops. I grew up in one of the greatest eras of the NBA. Jordan, Bird, Magic, Thomas, Malone, Olajuwon, Robinson, just to name a few. These guys forever changed the game that I love but Jordan was by far my favorite. He did things on a basketball court that had never been seen before. I have vivid memories of watching his moves and then trying to imitate him on my own basketball court in the driveway. “Like Mike, if I could be like Mike”!
One of the greatest moments of Jordan’s career came in the ’97 NBA Finals against the Utah Jazz. It was a tight series and hours before the start of game 5 it was announced that Jordan might not play due to having the flu. Somehow I knew Jordan would make his way onto that court. Michael Jordan is one of the fiercest competitors of all time in any sport. And play he did. From the start it was obvious that Jordan was not quite himself but he played, pushing through the pain and effect of the flu. Jordan would end up playing 44 minutes despite his weak body. He was visibly tired and sluggish throughout the game. He finished the game with 38 points, 7 rebounds, 5 assists, 3 steals and 1 block. With only a few seconds remaining and the game’s result safely in Chicago’s favor, Jordan collapsed into Scottie Pippen’s arms creating the most replayed and lasting image of The Flu Game. The Bulls would go onto win the championship and Jordan would earn another Finals MVP award, further cementing his place in Basketball history.
How do you choose to handle the pain of life? When we find ourselves in those seasons where for whatever reason life is just really painful how do you respond? If your anything like me the tendency is to stop living. Pain has a way of robbing us of experiencing life altogether. It’s as if nothing good can happen or be experienced when life doesn’t make sense.
What if it didn’t have to be this way? What if you could learn to play through the pain? The problem with hurt, disappointment, and suffering is that we allow it to become our identity and control us. When we live consumed by our shame, our past, our failures, we learn to stop living and life just goes passing by. We become spectators instead of participators. In all areas of life we end up surviving, just trying to get from one day to the next. This cannot be the abundant life Jesus spoke of.
Over the summer one of the hardest lessons I have ever learned was to play through the pain. Everything inside you tells you that your circumstances are so overwhelming that you don’t deserve to play. Then we feel bad for letting our circumstances control us. It becomes a vicious cycle. We become anxious, depressed, stagnant, merely surviving instead of thriving. What if I told you that one of the healing steps toward wholeness is learning how to play again? It is true and is very important for the healing process.
Our minds only have the ability to focus on one thing at a time. If we sit and focus on the problem then our problems become our life. We start to own them, we wear them on our faces, and they become our identity. We convince ourselves that we aren’t worthy or deserving of a good life with the ability to play.
The opposite is true as well. Choosing to play and live again doesn’t make the problems disappear. They are still there. Our struggles and circumstances don’t magically stop existing just because we choose to play. However, they do become less and less visible while play, and we truly live even if only for a moment. When we are playing we are living in the moment and focused on that moment. I guarantee while Michael Jordan was playing that game he was not thinking about having the flu. He was focused on the game and doing what he was destined to do.
For many of us we allow the pain of our past to rob us of our present and our future. There is nothing the enemy wants more by the way. The father of lies loves to remind you of your past and destroy any hope for a better future. This is what Jesus comes to destroy and do away with once and for all. The abundant life he talks about is experienced in Him and relationship with his Father through the Spirit. They are present in our darkness. Waiting for us with open arms, inviting us to come to them and find rest, to be made whole, and learn to live again. They replace our sorrow with joy, our fear with hope, our chaos with peace, and our pain with a promise.
What have you stopped doing that you used to enjoy? Before your innocence was lost what made you happy and full of life? Who have you stopped being because of the pain? I encourage you to spend time thinking about these questions and then having the courage to rediscover them. You are not broken, you are not unlovable, you are not worthless, and you are certainly not alone.
In choosing to play through the pain we choose life. We take power away from the circumstances of life that have robbed us of so much. We open ourselves to a greater understanding of our identity and new possibilities of our present and future. We only get one life. We have one shot to experience abundant life on this earth. This is part of how we make the ugly beautiful.
Live this week. Love this week. Do something spontaneous this week. Feed your soul this week. Look the pain square in the eye and tell it to go to hell. Refuse to be a victim and choose life. Only you hold the power to do this. Choose to live into your true identity as the Beloved and surround yourself in the unconditional love and embrace of the Father. Life awaits…take hold of it!
Be blessed…You already are!
theuglybeautiful 