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Linsanity. Super Lintendo. The Mighty Lin. Linvincible. Linspiration. Linning.
In the unlikely event that you haven’t read a newspaper, surfed the Internet, or watched SportsCenter on ESPN recently, let me introduce you to Jeremy Lin, the New York Knicks point guard who has lit up the Big Apple and mesmerized sports fans across the nation over the last few weeks. Lin’s story is so fascinating and inspiring because it beautifully demonstrates the power of perseverance by an athlete with a heart that has refused to be beaten down or defeated by setbacks, reversals, dismissals, and oversights in others’ evaluations of him.
Even though Lin led his high school basketball team to a state championship in California in ’05-’06, he received no scholarship offers from big-time college programs. Lin was a two-time All Ivy-League First Team member during the four years he played at Harvard, but still went undrafted by the NBA after graduating in 2010. He signed with his hometown Golden State Warriors, played in the NBA’s D-League, was claimed and promptly waived by the Rockets last December, then was picked up by the Knicks on December 27.
When the Knicks sent Lin down to the D-League’s Erie BayHawks, he responded with a triple-double (28 points, 11 rebounds, and 12 assists) in a game on January 20. Three days later, he was back in New York and got his chance, which he has maximized, to say the least. Among the most amazing feats on Lin’s increasingly impressive highlight reel was the 38 points he dropped on Kobe Bryant and the Lakers on February 10.
Like Tim Tebow, Lin is very open about his Christian faith, although he hasn’t yet inaugurated a signature prayer posture (and hopefully he won’t!). He is a humble, hard-working, team-player who can dish the ball just as well as he can score (he had 14 assists in the Knicks’ victory over my Dallas Mavericks on Sunday).
While I’m grateful for this “feel good story of the year” in the sports world, the most Linspirational part of it to me is the fact that Lin’s beliefs, character, and talent are exactly the same as they were when hardly anyone knew who he was.
As God’s children, we are called to walk in faith, integrity, and holiness, regardless of whether everyone is watching us or no one is.
Tim Tebow won his first NFL playoff game last Sunday night, leading his underdog Denver Broncos to a victory over the Pittsburg Steelers with an electrifying 80-yard touchdown pass on the first play of overtime. The home crowd erupted in jubilant celebration and a record-setting Twitter tsunami was unleashed: 9,420 tweets per second, the most ever for a sporting event. The Tebow faithful were more convicted and convinced than ever. Doubters were once again scratching their heads in amazement and begrudgingly expressing admiration for Tebow’s ability to lead his team to thrilling wins. Haters were left stewing in their own cynical juices.
In an article on Monday, Mark Kriegel praised Tim Tebow for what he believes is his most amazing trait of all, humility. In spite of all of the criticism and ridicule that he has received for his open expressions of faith and his sometimes erratic play on the field, Tebow has refrained from uttering a single ”I told you so” after a victory. He simply (and consistently) thanks God and his teammates for making him look better than he is.
Kriegel couldn’t resist a reference to Tebow 3:16, calling attention to the Denver quarterback’s intriguing stat of 316 passing yards against the Steelers. Soon after the game, I saw a few friends’ Facebook statuses that read, “316: Coincidence?” I didn’t want to rain on anyone’s faith parade or start any unnecessary debates, but, if I had chosen to comment, my answer would have been “Yes, just a coincidence.” Tebow’s passing yardage on 10 completions was owing to his scrambling and throwing skills, his receivers’ abilities, the protection of his offensive line, and the coverage (or lack thereof) of the defensive secondary. Does anyone really believe that God caused the other 11 of Tebow’s passes to be incomplete so that the divine math would work out to be exactly 316?
I thought Kriegel made an astute observation when he noted that many people seem “intent on demeaning religion by cross-pollinating it with sports.” If we profess to believe in a God who is so small and trivial that He fixes football games, no wonder so many people in our world are reluctant to believe in Him.
Colin Cowherd shared an excellent commentary about Tim Tebow and the Broncos’ victory on his ESPN Radio show on Monday morning. Though Cowherd is, by his own admission, not a religious person, he stated that he had absolutely no problem with Tebow’s faith because he sees him as being genuine and non-hypocritical. According to Cowherd, Tebow is not one of those athletes who says, “I love God,” and then hits on the flight attendant on the flight home.
What impressed Cowherd the most about Tim Tebow last Sunday was his apparent ability to forget his dismal performance in the previous three games and play as if it had never happened. In December, Tebow had been “the worst quarterback since they invented the facemask,” Cowherd said. Cowherd attributed Sunday’s extraordinary performance to Tebow’s faith, his “inner scoreboard” which allowed him to have “faith-based amnesia.” He could follow going “0 for December” with the best game of his career on Sunday. Cowherd stated, ”I’m not into religion, but to deny what his faith does for him is silly.” Well said!
It’s not that Tim Tebow can’t mentally recall past disappointments and failures on the field, he just isn’t owned by them, debilitated by them, or defined by them.
“Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 3:12-14).
Faith-based amnesia!
Noted journalist and atheist Christopher Hitchens passed away on December 15 at the age of 62 from complications of esophageal cancer. Through his writing, lectures, and debates, Hitchens was neither timid nor tempered in expressing his views about God. Believing that the term “atheist” might erroneously suggest some room for ambivalence about the notion of Deity, he preferred a stronger and more definitive description of himself as an “antitheist.” Hitchens, who identified the monotheistic faiths of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam as being ”the real axis of evil,” offered a thorough presentation of his thoughts about religion in his 2007 book, God is Not Great.
As odd and counter-intuitive as it might seem, the fervor of Christopher Hitchens’ belief system and the tenacity with which he held to it offer a commendable model that Christians would do well to imitate in regard to their faith in Jesus Christ.
There was no mushy middle ground for Hitchens when it came to the existence of God and the deity of Jesus Christ. “Hoping so” or “wishing so” was completely irrelevant to the discussion, and there was no room for sappy sentimentalism. Either God is, or He isn’t. Either Jesus is the divine Son of God and the world’s only hope for salvation, or He was a complete fraud. Of course, for Hitchens, it was a certainty that God isn’t; he staked his life, his reputation, and his intellect on it. He was sold-out, all-in, and unyielding in his convictions. He would challenge anyone on the subject, no matter who it made uncomfortable, angry, or indignant.
Am I as committed in my Christian faith as Hitchens was in his antagonism against it?
As his cancer worsened and death grew more imminent, Hitchens preemptively ruled out any possibility of a death-bed conversion. He warned friends not to believe him if, under the influence of palliative pain medication, he seemed to waffle about his disbelief in God. It would just be the drugs talking, he insisted. A terminal disease would not be allowed to undermine the foundation of his belief system.
Would I allow it to alter mine?
One of the qualities that made Christopher Hitchens so fascinating and frustrating to people was his deftness at being an equal-opportunity offender. His opinions about issues and personalities were truly his own, defying established conventions and simplistic labels. He was both vilified as a socialist liberal and ostracized for neo-conservatism and support for the Iraq war. He not only offered scathing critiques of Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush, but also Bill and Hillary Clinton and Michael Moore. Even Mother Teresa and the Dalai Lama could not escape his pointed pen and tongue.
It would have been far easier (and would have cost him fewer friends) if he had completely cast his lot with one “camp” or the other by clearly pledging his singular allegiance in partisan, “them” and “us” ideological conflicts. He would have known where the safe ground was and which targets were strictly off-limits. However, Hitchens would not allow himself to be confined within parameters and expectations that were determined by others.
Christians, also, should resist allowing their faith to be determined and their spiritual thinking limited by the imposition of the artificial boundaries of sectarian partyism, regardless of whether it is traditional or progressive, right or left, conservative or liberal. One should seek to be Biblical, no matter how untidily it may fit into the prefabricated theological boxes of others.
Though the basis and object of our belief could not be more different, Christians should seek a “Hitchens kind of faith”: bold, courageous, unwavering, unapologetic, and uncompromising.
