Giving Glory in Times of Loss (Bot9 #336)

Some weeks are just busier than others.

I started last week in Houston at a conference for Christian schools. Over the past few years, I’ve been working with my colleague, Jessika Caldwell (Valor’s Girls Basketball Coach), on creating a faith and sport integration plan for all of our sports at school. The program is called “Sport as Worship” and we had the opportunity to present a component of that plan to Christian school leaders in a sort of speed-dating format. We had five, ten-minute opportunities to show people what we were doing and how we were training our coaches to bring faith and sport together in meaningful ways.

We chose to show those interested in coming to our table what we refer to as a “lab.” We define labs as “a physical representation of a spiritual experience or truth in a competitive setting.” It’s really just using the methods Jesus and other Jewish rabbis would have used to illustrate a point to help the learner see, touch, and/or feel the concept. The lab would be about Glory and the competitive setting would be a game of Rock, Paper, Scissors (referred to as ‘RPS’ moving forward). The setup is pictured below. Like so many spiritual experiences or truths, Glory has many layers. As such, we gave our two volunteers three rounds and three physical representations of Glory. 

In the first round of RPS, the participants would have the Glory jar in the middle full of marbles and an empty jar in front of them. They’d play for a minute and after each win, they’d take a marble from the Glory jar and put it in their own. The sound of the marble landing in the jar is so pleasant and satisfying. It’s like a penny ringing in a piggy bank when you’re a kid. You’ve accomplished something, you’ve earned something, you’ve won. But the symbol here is profound - wins only serve to fill an empty spot in your heart. It takes a ton of them to fill the jar to any substantial level, and you have to steal Glory from God in order to do it.

In round two, the participants would have a full jar in front of them and a full Glory jar as well. This time the participants would take a marble from their own jar and put it in the Glory jar after each win during their second minute of play. This is the traditional “give God the Glory” idea we hear in Christian sports circles, but there’s two important details to see as well. First, we need to operate from an overflow of our heart in order to give Glory away. When we don’t, we’re more likely to try to hold the Glory for ourselves. Secondly, when you put the marble into the Glory jar, it’s kind of underwhelming compared to round one. It’s humbling to realize that we can’t add anything to God’s Glory. He already has and created all things. But this is important for us to realize that all we can do deflect and reflect the Glory of our incomparable Creator.

The last round is very interesting. We put enough marbles inside to fill the bottom of the jar. This time the participants have to put a marble into the Glory jar each time they lose. We intentionally make it difficult to get the marble out of the jar, because when have you ever seen an athlete point to the sky after a loss? Never? Me either. This is a process. It’s difficult. Losses in competitive situations tend to cause us to naval gaze and try to figure out what we need to do to improve. We don’t point to the sky and give God the Glory in losses, even though that’s what the Scriptures encourage us to do.

Labs are pretty cool, aren’t they? You could spend hours in conversation or study about Glory and end up with less clarity about the idea than you would just seeing, touching, and feeling the concept through a lab experience. We received a lot of positive feedback about the presentation, and made our way home with our colleagues. 24 hours after returning, I had to put the last element of the Glory lab into practice.

While winding down my day on Wednesday evening, I received a phone call from a parent in the Valor Baseball community. One of our former players, Davis Heller, lost his life in his sleep the night before. My legs gave way upon hearing the news and I sat down in the bedroom trying to understand what I had just heard. This young man went 10-0 as a freshman pitcher for our first state title in 2016. His college career peaked at the University of Alabama as a first baseman last year, and was finishing his college career at North Greenville University. He was a tremendous teammate and loving young man. He impacted many and that’s real. After hearing a chapel talk from one of our teachers who shared about a condition his son was born with, Davis approached the teacher afterwards and explained how he overcome the same condition. That’s who Davis was.

So as I processed Davis’s passing, I had to figure out how to put this painful marble into the Glory jar. I reached out to the coaches on the staff who would have known Davis to let them know. I reached out to Davis’s parents. I created a thread so I could inform his teammates from 2016. There was some misinformation out on the internet and I kept sharing the truth with those who were confused. I went and met with our social and emotional counselor at school so I was checking in with myself as a human being mourning a loss. I fielded tearful phone calls and shared tears with his former teammates in person. There were no answers to give, only connections to be made. Every connection was an opportunity to put a marble in the Glory jar and point all of us to Jesus. He’s our rock, He’s never-changing, and we need Him when we are mourning.

The funny thing about Glory is that when we deflect and reflect it appropriately, it seems that God gives you the opportunity to do it more. On Saturday, Davis’s mom called and invited me to lead an Around the Mound ceremony as a part of Davis’s Celebration of Life at the end of November at North Greenville University in South Carolina. I can’t begin to share how overwhelming that moment was. She cried, I cried, and I’ll be there. We’ll grab each other’s shoulders and we’ll give Glory to the Lord in a time of indescribable loss. And as we do, Jesus will be magnified as we see, feel, and touch our faith in a more profound way.

Davis Heller - https://ngu.edu/featured-homepage/ngu-mourns-the-death-of-student-athlete/