When a hero falls ...

My heart is still heavy over the news of Jim Tressel resigning in the midst of controversy and scandal. I bounce between being angry, then sad, then frustrated, then angry again, then disappointed ... Some days, I seriously think I need to be mentally evaluated! It may sound crazy, but I’ve actually had to stop and spend some time with God about it, asking Him to show me why in the world this event has created such a reaction in me? I’ve never even met Coach Tressel (although we did receive a nice hand-written note of encouragement from him while David was in the hospital). True, I’ve been known to bleed scarlet and gray from a very young age, but seriously, it’s JUST A TEAM!! Why does it matter SO much?!

A couple months ago, I started to work through an issue with God that He had brought to my attention. I truly thought we had made some headway in it and had actually stopped thinking about it ... until this thing with Coach Tressel seemed to bring it all to surface again. The issue is one of feeling ‘entitled’ to something from God. Does that hit a chord with anyone? I, personally, hate the word ‘entitlement’ and hate even more the attitude of entitlement that is running rampant through our society. It’s one of my ‘hot buttons’ as I truly believe it’s one of the major diseases of the heart that is ruining our world ... and then one day, God told me to ‘get that plank out of my own eye’ and revealed to me how I was actually living like I was ‘entitled’ ... to certain things from Him.

I don’t know how you handle when God puts His finger on something ugly in your life, but in my seasoned walk with God, my first response always seems to be to outright deny it :) And for as long as I can get away with it, I might pretend I didn’t hear Him in hopes that the crazy thought will go away with the indigestion from last night’s pizza!! Then in continuing in my spiritual maturity, after He lets me stew on it for a few days/weeks/months, I MIGHT get brave enough to acknowledge it, but only just enough to make excuses for it. After all, doesn’t the Bible tell us that as Believers, we ARE entitled to some things from God?! His favor? His protection? His love? If I worship Him, doesn’t that entitle me to His presence? If I make sacrifices for him, doesn’t that entitle me to His love? If I keep His commands and do His deeds, doesn’t that entitle me to His favor? What about His protection, I’m sure that’s in there SOMEWHERE!

And that’s pretty much how my journaling and conversations went with the Lord for weeks, going around and around with Him trying to convince Him that I was ‘justified’ in my expectations of regularly receiving SOMETHING from Him in return for my ‘devotion’. I laid before Him all kinds of passages from the Bible like Psalm 5:12 (For surely, O LORD, you bless the righteous; you surround them with your favor as with a shield), Psalm 18:20 (The Lord rewarded me according to my righteousness), Psalm 91:9 ( If you make the Most High your dwelling— even the LORD, who is my refuge— then no harm will befall you, no disaster will come near your tent). My arrogance can not go unmentioned in my ‘self proclamation’ of righteousness, but that’s another issue for another day. [heavy sigh]

But God is good ... and patient ... and He had much to say to me about EACH exhibit I was all too eager to lay out for my defense (or for to His prosecution, however you want to look at it). In that time spent with Him, a change started to take place in my heart as I started to be renewed in the revelation that EVERYTHING is from Him and Him alone! That seems so ‘Genesis 101’, but that truth started to make its way from my head to my heart and I became overwhelmed with the further truth that only by the grace of what Jesus did for me on the cross am I even able to partake in ANYTHING from Him. As Believers, we’re not ENTITLED to anything, but everything is a GIFT to those who believe (Galatians 3:22). Think about it ... Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, Goodness, Faithfulness, Gentleness and Self Control ... all good things, ALL GIFTS of the Holy Spirit (Gal 5:22), and the Holy Spirit, Himself, was given to us as a GIFT by the Father after Jesus came and went (John 14:16). The ‘rewards of the righteous’ are GIFTS that await us in Heaven, but I also believe they are available to us on Earth, but only through the fruit of the Spirit (through Love, through Joy, through Peace, through Kindness, etc...). Even that I may someday be considered righteous is an overwhelming GIFT available only through the blood of Jesus (Rom 5:17) ... Oh Jesus, thank you!!! And the download just kept coming ... I don’t worship to receive His presence, it is because of His presence that I HAVE to worship!! I don’t follow His commands and do His deeds to receive His blessing, it is because He has blessed me so greatly that I WANT to bless others!! I don’t offer grace and mercy to offers just so I can get a pass from Him, it is because I've experienced grace and mercy from Him that I know that gift and that experience makes me compassionate for others and actually EASY to be full of grace and mercy towards them!! How great is our God!?!

I think with Coach Tressel, the reason it created such a reaction in me is that with all heroes, we see something in them that we someday hope to become ... and when our hero falls, our hope of becoming like them falls, too. That’s why it’s personal. That explains the excuses we make for them and the injustice we feel in the process. It’s an all-too-close reminder of how imperfect we, ourselves, are and how likely we are to make the same mistakes ... But oh, if not by grace!! Have any of us lied to protect our kids? Have any of us mislead or deceived in hopes of saving a bad situation from becoming a worse situation? Ever? I’m not saying what Coach Tressel did was right, but I am saying I’m full of grace for him because I have received grace, myself ... many times, in many ways.

As I presented Coach Tressel’s case before God, asking Him why Coach wasn’t ‘protected’ from this situation, declaring him ‘righteous’ and ‘entitled’, I was challenged with the thought ‘If this was about a non-Christian, would you be so strong to defend, so full of grace?’. It stopped me in my tracks. While I know now that I WILL be going forward, at that time, I couldn’t honestly answer ‘yes’. I realized I was playing the ‘entitlement card’ again, oh Lord have mercy. That for some reason because Coach is a Christian, he was 'entitled' to be spared from this scandal, receive a pass for his mistakes. But Jesus tells us in Luke 12:48, 'From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked.'

The truth is, we are ALL in need of mercy and grace, Christian or not. Romans 3:23 says ‘we all have sinned and fall short of the Glory of God’, which is why we need the blood of Jesus to be our grace and mercy when we stand before the Lord to give account for all that we have failed in. But none of us are entitled to it and there is nothing we can do to earn it. Grace and mercy are gifts. As Believers in Christ, we are entitled to nothing, but given everything. I still can’t get my head around how big that really is ... it’s the Mystery of Christ and the power of the Cross. The Good News is Jesus, the Promise Everlasting and for all of us in need of a hero, Jesus is our one true Hero ... The ONLY one to whom we can always look up and hope to become like ... but even more importantly, He alone is the Hero that will NEVER fall!!

Thank you, Jesus!!




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