Broken

I had screamed myself raw.  It’s what usually happens when I show up to corner my fighters.  I tell myself—every time—that I’m going to be careful.  But, inevitably, I had lied to myself.  I found myself leaning at the cage door once more and screaming my tonsils into oblivion.

My fighter had been prepared.  He had trained for this moment—actually, he had trained for all potential 15 minutes of this moment.  We had worked game plans, escapes for when the game plan failed, situations, and situations for when situation failed us.  He had been ready.  I’d had no doubt.

But his first couple of rounds indicated something different.

He was failing to execute.  He wasn’t doing a thing we had trained.  We had trained to circle—he was standing still.  We had trained to work the jab—he was winging sloppy right-hand haymakers.  We had trained to set up the takedown—he was diving for double-legs so inefficient that I hadn’t even known he was capable of technique that poor.

So I had done what coaches do in times like that.  I started screaming.  I was yelling at the top of my lungs—and abusing them in the process.  The crowd was loud.  I was louder.  I was later told that I could be heard from the back of the bleachers.

I yelled for him to get back to the game plan.  I reminded him of the things we had worked on.  I wanted to pound on the mat, but coaches aren’t allowed to do that.  I just kept screaming.

He stayed completely out of the game plan.  And he paid for staying out of the game plan.  He started eating jabs, then sharp leg kicks.  Suddenly—before any of us realized it had happened—he was pressed against the cage and defending the takedown.  He got sloppy.  He got loose.  He got taken down.  Then he was eating punches while he tried to fight back to his feet. 

The first round ended rather poorly, but he did survive.  I rushed into the cage with my other corner at my side.  He was a little marked up, but not so bad that it would slow him down.  Water and ice and 60 seconds—that’s all we had.  I did my best to cram what advice I could into that short minute.  My other corner echoed my thoughts.

“Get back into the game plan.  Don’t kick without setting up your punches.  Get off first…jab, jab, jab.  Move your feet.  Sit down and keep your hands up.”

Then the bell rang and the fight was back on.  And the fight was immediately back to what it had been—more of the same beating.  He just couldn’t pull the trigger.  He wasn’t doing any of the things we had worked on.  He was paying for it.  The end of the second round brought a tired version of himself to the corner where we greeted him with ice, grease, and water.

He was pretty touched up this time.  Swollen in a few places.  I plied the Endswell as best I could while I talked.  My other corner worked furiously with Vaseline for the cuts that were starting to show.  He was hurting, but he had a lot more left in him.  I had trained him and I had trained with him.  I knew what he was capable of.  He was capable of winning this fight.  I wouldn’t have let him take it if he wasn’t. 

But he needed to do it my way.

So I paused, looked him in the eyes.  “You have one more round to win this thing.  It hasn’t gone your way yet.  Are you ready to listen now?”

Am I ready to listen?  I don’t hear God audibly speaking to me or anything ,but I can’t help but wonder how often He asks me that very question.  I’m a pretty stubborn guy.  I like to try do to things my own way.  I very easily forget that God is bigger, smarter, and far more experienced than I could ever be.  But that doesn’t even begin to stop me from trying things the way I think that they should be done.

For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. (Isaiah 55:99)

The problem is that my thinking is seldom right, especially when it is opposed to God’s plan.  I forget how little I know.  I forget to respect the wisdom of the very God who created me.  I get a bit arrogant and a lot cocky.  And I decide I know what is better for me.

For if anyone thinks he is something, when he is nothing, he deceives himself (Galatians 6:3)

God has created me for a purpose and for a divine plan—for something so grand that I could not even begin to comprehend it.  He has my best interest at heart. To say that He wants me to succeed is a severe understatement.  He wants me to prosper, to share the wealth with others so that they can prosper, and then prosper some more.  God’s plan is all about me because by glorifying God I am serving the loftiest of goals. 

For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord , plans for wholeness and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.  Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you. You will seek me and find me. When you seek me with all your heart, I will be found by you, declares the Lord, and I will restore your fortunes and gather you from all the nations and all the places where I have driven you, declares the Lord, and I will bring you back to the place from which I sent you into exile. (Jeremiah 29:11-14)

I am foolish and obstinate, easily distracted by shiny things.  I see something flashy and attractive.  It draws me in and it entices me.  Suddenly the plan seems foolish to me.  Or maybe I begin to resent it.  I begin to believe that God has stifled me intentionally.  Maybe He wants me to fail, or maybe He just doesn’t want me to be as good as I could be.  I begin to think of Him in the smallest of terms—like the petty impersonations of gods that our world has known over the millennia.  I believe Him to be of the same ilk as Zeus, or Odin, or Ahura Mazda.  I think He is petty and mean.  He is laughing at me or toying with me or using me as entertainment.  But I am wrong.  God is nothing like those petty versions of the One True God.

For the Lord is a great God, and a great King above all gods.  (Psalms 95:3)

God has made me a promise.  God cannot break his promise.  That’s what makes Him God—among so many other things.  He has promised that He will be faithful to His promise, even if I don’t believe Him.

If we are faithless, he remains faithful—for he cannot deny himself. (2 Timothy 2:13)

Yet, while God will pursue me relentlessly He is not willing to force Himself upon my heart.  He will wait for me instead.  He will wait until I am ready.

Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me. (Revelations 3:20)

He waits till I am ready.  And sometimes He has to wait a while.  He has to wait until I have experienced every consequence of every poor choice I have made.  I have to wait until I am broken.  I have to wait until I have nothing left to fight with.  And it is finally then that I will look my God in the eyes and say that I am ready.  And my God waits there for me.  He knows I am stubborn but it does not diminish his love for me.  He does not judge me.  He simply returns my gaze and whispers levelly, “are you ready to listen now?”

The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit.  (Psalms 34:18)