If I Can Then I Can

I’ve never been much for video games.  It’s not that I hate them.  I’m bad at them.  I’m terrible at 1^st-Person Shooter stuff and even worse at platformers.  I like to play at my own speed and enjoy a story while I do—it’s also nice when I’m not competing against some invisible 12-year old kid who keeps killing my character.

If I do play video games, I gravitate toward Role-Playing.  I like turn-based stuff that moves slowly and allows me to build a character or two.  I like to organize and solve problems on my own time.  But, even then, I tend to ruin those games for myself.  I ruin them because I notice something that starts to annoy me.  I notice that the game isn’t getting more creative as the game deepens, or that the story is enhancing, or that new puzzles are being introduced.  I notice that the enemies are just getting more difficult to kill.  They may have more hit points, or better armor, but they’re not any different than they were earlier in the game other than the fact that they’re just stronger.

For some reason, that knowledge stifles my enjoyment of the game.

It seemed an impossible task, but my coaches weren’t willing to accept impossible as an excuse.  They required and expected more from me.  I was eager to please them, but their demands stretched loyalty to a breaking point.

We were just about to start my third sparring round with my fifth training partner—lots of teammates had shown up to put me through my paces.  5-minute rounds, new partner halfway through each round, and every round fought with intentionality.  My team was preparing me for my next professional fight.  It was scheduled for 3 5-minute rounds.  They wanted to make sure I was ready. 

Some phone calls had been made, and a few texts had been sent out.  They arranged for as many of my teammates as possible to be at the same place at the same time.  I was there to be the center of attention.

My coach’s plan was simple—in theory.  I was going to fight 9 5-minute rounds with fresh partners at the halfway point of each round.  In short, I was going to fight 45 minutes against 18 different fighters.  It sounded like it was going to horrible.  I would be fighting the equivalent of three fights in one session.

It certainly was horrible.

I came out in the first round knowing that I had a long way to go.  I tried to pace myself, but my sparring partners had been excitable.  They’d come to push me, and they forced me to fight for my life.  I was exhausted by the end of the first round.

The second round was worse.  Only my pride and my desire to please my teammates kept me in the fight.  The round finished and I could barely lift my arms.  I walked to the wall and started to my knees, overcome by exhaustion.

“No!” I heard my coach’s firm voice.  “Stay on your feet.  Walk.  We’re not tired.  We’re just getting started.”

I didn’t have the energy to argue, so I did what he said.

“You’re going to get through this and it’s going to make fight night seem easy.  If you can do this, you can do anything!”

I don’t want to live in my past, but my past can’t help but paint a portrait of my present.  Previous experience informs who I am now.  I can’t live without my past, because without my past I am not me.

My mind has an obvious proclivity for dwelling on the negative things from my past.  It’s a weird form of pessimism, or, at least, something like pessimism.  It’s easy for me to exclude the victories from my past and what they have meant to me.  I tend toward catastrophic thinking—something broken inside of me fears that the worst is bound to happen.  I just know that it’s going to happen, so I begin preparing for the devastation that the loss will bring.

But it’s not true.  I don’t always lose.  I win a lot.  I have a hard time remembering my wins when I expect myself to lose.  I once told somebody that I feel like a pessimist trapped in an optimist’s body—I crave the best but expect the worst.  It’s not a great way to live.

I’m not sure if there’s some form of mental discipline to forcing myself to see the good things from my past.  It’s probably a spiritual discipline.  Either way, it’s not one that I’m good at.  The weight of the struggles I have now seem to override my memory.  They steer me only to the catastrophic.  They inspire me to forget what I’m capable of and how many times my God has fought at my side.

(Psalms 106:7)  Our fathers in Egypt did not grasp the significance of Your wonderful works or remember Your many acts of faithful love; instead, they rebelled by the sea—the Red Sea.

I become so consumed with my fear and anxiety—two sensations that live only in the moment—that I easily forget how many times I have fought forward through similar adversity.  I have a habit of coming through to the other side of adversity and being better and stronger for it.  I have blueprints and protocols for victory in times of trouble.

But they’re so easy to forget.

They’re so easy to forget in the moment when I focus entirely on the moment.

Every one of those challenges—the defeats and the victories—they built me to be who I am now.  I’m still here.  I’m still standing.  I’m stronger than I was before.  I’m stronger than I was because of those hardships.  I’m better than I was and I have those adversities to be grateful for.

They teach me so much about myself, and they teach me so much about the God who is with me.

It’s easy to forget to be grateful for the hard things, mostly because I’m not typically grateful for them.

I think the hardest part of fighting is the part that happens directly against the cage, and here I was fighting the hardest and most exhausting part of the fight, grinding out punishing exchanges against the cage wall.  I wanted the takedown, but so did he.    Mobility was limited and my opponent felt much stronger than me.  I don’t know if he actually was, but he definitely felt like he was during that exchange. 

By some miracle of movement, our struggle pushed us along the cage to a point directly in front of my corner where I could clearly hear the voices of my coaches.  One of them was—at the time—my primary training partner.  We had hammered out thousands of mat-hours together.  He knew me well and he had made sure I was ready for this fight.

Sometimes my coaches see things that I don’t see.  That’s why I have to listen to them.

“Joel!” I heard his familiar voice shout.  “The single-leg is right there.  Take it!”

I heard him and I knew he was right.  I could see it clearly.  I had a pretty good single-leg setup and finish.  But I was hesitant.  This was a hard fight,  we were both sweaty, and I could feel the fatigue creeping in from a distance.  I wasn’t sure if I could snag that single-leg on this particular fighter.

He was a good coach and a good training partner.  He knew what was in my mind even if I didn’t say it out loud.  He knew me well.  We had ground out hours against each other on the cage wall session after session.

“Joel, we’ve been here before.  You’ve taken me down here a hundred times.  If you can take me down you can take him down.”

That’s what the hard things teach me.  They teach me to prevail.  That’s not always what if feels like, though.  It doesn’t always feel like I’m learning to overcome.  Sometimes it just feels like I’m learning to suffer.  I already know how to do that.

That’s now how my God works, though.  He’s not willing to waste my experience.  In fact, I’ve come to believe that He’s designing my experience quite specifically for the purpose of growing me more toward His image.  It’s not an easy process, and it’s not a process that I usually recognize while it’s happening.  I become myopic when I’m under pressure.  I can only see the now—I can’t see the future and what’s waiting on the other side.

So that you may walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to Him, bearing fruit in every good work and growing in the knowledge of God. (Colossians 1:10) 

I don’t love the hard things and I don’t like the hard moments.  But the hard moments and the difficult things are building me into what I am purposed to be.  That’s refinement.  That’s a honing.  Refinement and honing require removal of excess and excess is only removed inside of the fire.

It hurts.

And it’s hard.

Growth is painful, but I don’t carry this pain alone.

I was just a few days out from tournament day doing the thing that most fighters do—I was checking the brackets and trying to assess my competition.  Obviously, I couldn’t do anything about my fights until they happened, but there was something about obsessing over the brackets that seemed to make me feel better.  Maybe it didn’t make me feel better.  Maybe it made me feel more anxious, but I was doing it, anyway.

I had a friend who was helping check the brackets.  He’s a very active competitor who understands why we spend so much time looking at brackets before competition day.  He’s also a very active competitor who is a whole lot better at Jiu-jitsu than I am.  He’s been one of my best training partners for the last couple of decades.

“I don’t know any of these guys,” I said.  “I have no idea what to expect from them.”

He was scrolling through the brackets intensely when he looked up and smiled.  “I know all of them,” he said.  “I’ve rolled with every one of them.  I’m not going to tell you to underestimate them, but I’m pretty sure you’re going to be fine.

If you can hang with me these guys won’t be a problem.”

It’s a progression of sorts.  Every challenge God has given me has prepared me for the next challenge.  They’re never the same—I can’t have to same day (good or bad) twice—but each concept I learn becomes a concept I can deploy when I encounter resistance again.  It’s a progression.

I will remember the LORD's works; yes, I will remember Your ancient wonders.  I will reflect on all You have done and meditate on Your actions. (Psalms 77:11-12) 

There’s something in my  life—actually, there are several somethings in my life—that I can’t see myself being worthy to take hold of.  I don’t have the strength to clutch them as I know I should.  I don’t have the fortitude to embrace to myself and do what I know is right.  Even with God’s help—those few times I actually allow it to shine through—I’m worried that it will slip through my hands I’m too weak or—possibly—too strong to guard like it deserves to be guarded.

It’s a frustrating dichotomy.

Then God shows me again.  He shows me what I’m built for, this place where I’m meant to be.  It’s right at the edge of my grasp, at the edge of my strength and my vision.  I ask God why He’s only showing me this now, this thing I was built for.

And God tells me that He hasn’t shown me because I haven’t been built for it until now.  We still had work to do.

I struggle to trust the building.

There is a tendency I have to find the negative outcomes in my past and camp within them as if they were a haven of some sort.  I tell myself that I am no different today than I was yesterday. 

But that’s a lie.  It’s a lie because I’ve been proven wrong so many times.  I don’t always recognize it at the time.  It’s hard to recognize my victories when I feel like I’m actively being defeated. 

My God has never left me to fight alone.

There are miraculous and inexplicable events that have occurred in my past.  They are events that have sent me right and pushed me forward.  Things I know I can’t explain because they were things of a supernatural origin.  I tend to diminish the when I wrestle inside of my own thoughts and with my own doubts.  I deflate them of their magnitude when I assault them with my own memory.

Memory is a funny thing.  It’s a traitorous thing that usually reaches for the least plausible explanation.  My memory is often a fabricator, perhaps even a liar.  It attempts to paint my past as an insurmountable obstacle that nothing can find way beyond.  It forgets that my God has always shown up, even when I didn’t know I needed Him to.

(Hebrews 10:32)  Remember the earlier days when, after you had been enlightened, you endured a hard struggle with sufferings.

My name is seconds away from being called, I know that.  I’m trying to stay warm but not burn too much energy.  I’m trying to stay out of my head, but I can’t help it.  I don’t know if my Jiu-jitsu is good enough.  I don’t know if I belong in this division.  These are solid competitors, and I don’t think I’m one of them.

My coach, my friend, is standing at my side where he always seems to be standing.  “It’s Jiu-jitsu,” he says to me.  “You’re a fighter.  Nobody here is trying to punch you.  You’ve been fighting MMA for years.  If you can do that, you can do this.”

I find myself praying the same prayer again, and it’s not really a prayer.  It’s mostly just me yelling at God, reminding Him of how dissatisfied I am with His current level of service.  He doesn’t seem to be coming through for me.  I’m crying out for rescue and I’m not being rescued.

The small voice in my spirit whispers (because it always seems to whisper), “remember that time not so long ago?  Remember that dark place we were in?  Remember how I was there with you?  I’m still here.

We got through that, and we can get through this.”

I’m a big guy, but I’m not this much of a big guy.  Nobody showed up in my weight class.  They asked if I wanted to fight in a heavier bracket.  For some reason I agreed, and now I think I’m regretting that choice.  My opponent is approaching, and I can already tell that gravity likes him better.

“He’s a big guy,” says one of my training partners—he’s standing right beside me.  My training partner is right.

I turn to look at my training partner.  I had forgotten how big my training partner is.  I’m used to training with him, so it’s easy to forget. He’s the same size as my opponent and he is smiling.

“Remember how you trapped me four times in a three-minute round?” my training partner asks.  “If you can do that to me then you can beat this guy.”

I can’t do this.  I feel so alone.  I feel so alone again.  This fight is much more than I can handle.

It’s a familiar feeling.  One that I can’t help but remember.  I’ve been here before, or, at least, somewhere much like this.  It felt bad like this.  The sensations in my body, the thoughts in my mind, the unsettling of my spirit—I’ve been here before and I hate that I’m here again.

But there’s that voice again.  Maybe my ear is starting to recognize what it sounds like.  “Remember how hard this was last time?” the voice asks.  “Remember how you had no strength, but I gave you mine?  Remember the people I sent to you, the ones that held you up?  The way we made it through that is the way we’re going to make it through this, and I’m already doing the work.  Let’s do it again.”

I wear a black belt, but I don’t think that I deserve it.  It’s an impostor syndrome thing.  Now my black belt is in one hand and my gi is in the other one.  I’m looking at the door of the academy I was invited to visit for a regional black belt event.  There are going to be black belts from all over the area.

I don’t belong here.  I’m not a real black belt.

I’m standing there staring at the front door, thinking about getting back in my truck and driving away.  I have my back turned and don’t notice my friend until his hand is on my shoulder.  He’s a real black belt.  He’s one of the best in the world.  He’s better than me.  He’s a lot better than me.

“Good to see you,” his hand gently pushes me forward, toward that door.  “I’m glad you’re here.  I’ve been telling some of these guys how good you are and they’re eager to meet you.”

I had peace for a moment, but now I can feel it slipping out of my grasp.  My mind is anxious and my mind is fast.  Peace is a temporary thing—all the time every time, it seems.  I was trusting God, believing in God, growing my faith, and leaning on and understanding that was not my own. 

But that was ten minutes ago.

This is now.  I can feel my peace, my trust, and my faith beginning to waver.  It feels slimy, like something I can’t hold on to too tightly or too loosely.  I’m going to choose wrong, because that’s what I do, and my peace will become a temporary peace.  I will have proven that I’m not worthy of peace.

The Spirit stirs somewhere inside of me—I can’t explain how.  It reminds me that we’ve done this a thousand times.  I’m here again because I’m weak, but my weakness isn’t the deciding factor.  My God’s strength is, and His mercies are new every morning.  That hasn’t changed in the last ten minutes.

It’s a progression of sorts, I suppose.  My God refuses to allow me to evaluate me according to my own standards.  He refuses to leave me to my own devices.  He reminds me of what we are capable of and what He’s done for me.  If we made it through to where we are now we can certainly keep going.

 Remember the wonderful works He has done, His wonders, and the judgments He has pronounced (1 Chronicles 16:12)