This past Sunday was just an ordinary day. I got up early, spent time with Jesus, and then went to church to hang out with a bunch of awesome people and talk with them about Jesus. Lunch afterward with more conversations and then finally, home.

Sunday afternoons in our house are pretty similar week to week: I update the podcast and work on some of the post-production of the message video while the B99 naps. Yes, she loves that it works out that way! This week followed the same script until she got up and greeted me with, “Did you hear about Kobe Bryant?”

The B99 is actually pretty current on popular athlete names, but if I was compiling a list of the Top 100 questions Wendy would ask me after an afternoon nap, that one isn’t on it.

“No.”

“He died in a helicopter crash.”

We turned on YouTube TV and spent 20 minutes or so watching the same footage of smoke rising from a hillside over and over and over again.

I could have cried. Maybe I did. I felt an overwhelming sense that I had lost something and yet, I didn’t. Did I? I’ve spent the better part of the week wondering about that. Wondering why the death of someone I’ve never met could affect me so deeply? Why so many others were feeling the same way about the same person that they’d never met, either? Why a kid wearing #24 and hitting the game-winning shot could cause such a massive eruption of cathartic cheering in a gym full of people who didn’t know the Laker who wore that number?

As I slipped out the door early this morning for a quick 4-mile run, I’m not sure I was any closer to the answers to those questions. I think I actually had more to ask. What allows us to be so close to death that we are shaken and yet just as quickly return to lives as normal? How can we live each day as if it’s our last without being overwhelmingly morbid? I mean, come on. If this was my last day, I’d be hugging my family and never letting go. No school. No work. No ministry. Just one long, increasingly awkward group hug.

But then it happened. Toward the end of my run, I heard a familiar voice in my AirPods. It was TobyMac and he was singing “21 years” – a song he wrote as he wrestled with the death of his son, Truett. It’s a song full of questions – more questions than answers – and the last 2 lines hit me hard:

God has you in heaven
But I have you in my heart

Why does death affect us so deeply? Because it hits us in the heart and in the process reveals something in our hearts that we often try to ignore: eternity.

Yet God has made everything beautiful for its own time. He has planted eternity in the human heart, but even so, people cannot see the whole scope of God’s work from beginning to end.

(Ecclesiastes 3:11; emphasis mine)

Death reminds us that we have a time that is our own time, a period of days, weeks, months, and years in which we have to come to grips with eternity. And death reminds us that all of that is bigger than any one of us: famous athletes, aspiring rappers, or the 151,600 other mostly unknown people who will die around the world today.

Life is a gift, but death can be, too, especially when it reminds us that we only have a limited time to deal with the fact that we only have limited time.

[Tweet “Life is a gift, but death can be, too, especially when it reminds us that we only have a limited time to deal with the fact that we only have limited time.”]

I hurt for TobyMac and his family and I’ve never met them. I hurt for Vanessa Bryant and her girls even though I’ve never met them. I hurt for the families of the other people who lost their lives last Sunday on a helicopter in the fog. I’m sure you do, too.

But let’s not waste their pain and their loss by only rubber-necking their tragedy for a news cycle. Instead, let’s take the moment that we’ve been given – this eye-opening, heart-rending, eternity-realizing moment – and change the way we live for however much longer we live.

[Tweet “Death can help us change the way we live for however long we live.”]

If we do that – if we live lives to our fullest potential and for God’s greatest glory – then maybe Kobe’s death will actually become his greatest assist.

Reading Time: 4 minutesThere are moments when things can get so heated, so polarized and so political that no matter what anyone says, things seem to get worse.

This is one of those moments.

Millionaires athletes are fighting with a billionaire president and most people who are neither of those would be hard-pressed to explain why.

The reason is that the fight has eclipsed the cause, and winning has been redefined as “not losing” instead of finding an actual solution.

One side makes the other side look bad, and then the volley is returned with more heat. All on social media in sound bites or in the middle of an anthem that is causing division when it was written to unite.

The fact that our National Anthem has become so divisive says a lot. But is anyone really hearing what it says?

[Tweet “The fact that our National Anthem has become divisive says a lot. But is anyone really listening?”]

I believe that what’s keeping us from finding any real progress as a country toward a solution to very real problems is the fact that the fighters – President Donald J. Trump and players in the NFL who have chosen to kneel or sit or not come out of the locker room during the National Anthem – have one very simple thing in common: bad delivery.

Thankfully (for me and for you), I’m not the President. Everything I say or post doesn’t get picked apart and scrutinized from every possible angle, and I’m glad. People who know me can also vouch for the fact that I am not a professional football player, so I don’t have a platform the size of many of the men who have been made famous by throwing, catching, running or kicking on Sundays. My joints are thankful for that (although my bank account sometimes isn’t).

But I am a leader, and what I know about leaders is that they carry 2 buckets with them at all times. One is filled with water and the other with gasoline. And smart leaders know which one to throw on fires. Someone has a passion to find the cure for cancer? Throw gas on that fire! Someone has an idea that can make your organization better? Throw gas on that all day long!

[Tweet “All leaders carry 2 buckets – water and gas. Smart leaders know which one to throw on fires.”]

But situations that are already at the point of explosion? Things like racism, police brutality, social injustices? Smart leaders throw water on those fires, not to squelch them so that they don’t have to deal with them, but so that the root causes can be discovered, discussed and dealt with.

Calling NFL players who are protesting during the National Anthem a derogatory name (no matter how offensive that may be to you personally) is throwing the wrong bucket, and during a speech in Alabama, our President’s bad delivery caused the flames to go higher.

How much higher? From 6 protesting players to more than 200 protesting players in a week. Unfortunately, bad delivery seems to have muted their protest, too and resulted in even more gas on an already out of control fire.

To kneel, sit or refuse to even acknowledge the National Anthem and then say you aren’t protesting our country is a bad delivery. Don’t take my word for it. Listen to the money. As the number of pretesting players rose, ratings for NFL games dropped – down 8% from one week earlier. The one member of the Pittsburgh Steelers who didn’t stay in the locker room – offensive guard Alejandro Villanueva – now wears the hottest jersey according to sales on the website for the largest retailer of sports merchandise.

Is it because he stood for racism and injustice? Of course not. It’s because the message heard by the majority of our nation wasn’t the same message that the protesting players were trying to send. They were mad at a President with bad delivery (and rightfully so), but their response was misunderstood because of their bad delivery.

Bad delivery will kill a good message, and that’s what both sides need to remember.

How you’re saying what you’re saying is making it hard to hear what you’re saying.

[Tweet “How you’re saying what you’re saying can make it hard to hear what you’re saying.”]

The message of the protest – disgust at what Trump said (and maybe at who Trump is) – got lost because of the moment of the protest. People simply can’t see past what looks like disrespect for our country, which – if you come full circle – is what got Trump elected as the 45th President of the United States.

I’m not so naive as to believe that simply being a “nicer” protester or a “better” speaker will fix the bad meal on the table, but I do believe that thinking through the approach and correcting the bad deliveries could get both sides to the table.

Are there real issues? Yes. Are racism, injustice, and bigotry worth fighting against? Without a doubt. Are patriotism and freedom worth fighting for? Absolutely.

But is the “he said, they kneeled” delivery deflecting our attention from the real fight? Sadly, I believe it is.

Hopefully, a couple hundred million Americans will read this, grab some water, and lead us toward a better tomorrow.

Reading Time: 3 minutesYesterday I watched for 3 quarters as the Carolina Panthers surgically destroyed the New York Giants and built a lead of 35-7. For most of that time, Cam Newton looked a lot like a MVP.

But it was what I saw at the end of an unbelievable comeback by the Giants and/or meltdown by the Panthers that really caught my attention.

It was right after Odell Beckham, Jr. caught the game-tying touchdown.

It was in the middle of a 79,436 person celebration in MetLife Stadium (well, minus the stunned Panthers fans who were there).

It only lasted a few seconds, but when the cameras caught Cam’s face on the sideline, he didn’t look like a MVP anymore.

For a moment, he looked like Jesus.

I should probably explain before I’m accused of heresy, so let’s start with some Scripture. It’s found in the book of Luke (Luuuukkkkkkeeeeee), and it takes place right after the disciples had a spat about who would be the greatest and right before Jesus puts their pride in its place by highlighting that there is actually a cost to following him.

As the time approached for him to be taken up to heaven, Jesus resolutely set out for Jerusalem. (Luke 9:51)

That verse was a throwback to an ancient prophecy found in the book of Isaiah describing what would be done to Jesus and how he would respond.

I offered my back to those who beat me, my cheeks to those who pulled out my beard; I did not hide my face from mocking and spitting. Because the Sovereign Lord helps me, I will not be disgraced. Therefore I have set my face like flint, and I know I will not be put to shame. (Isaiah 50:6-7)

Now, back to Luke (the book, not arguably the best defensive player in the NFL). Jesus, knowing that his mission is a cross on the way to a crown, and knowing that the stakes could not be higher nor the opposition fiercer, set his face like stone and feet toward the place where he would complete his mission.

What’s a face set like stone look like, you ask? A lot like this:

It looks like Cam on the sideline with less than 2 minutes to go. Not dropping his head. Not mad at a defense who inexplicably folded like a paper bag under the pressure of a crazed, desperate Giants team.

Just a face that says, “I got this.”

Now…….

Forget football, because as exciting as this historic run by the Carolina Panthers is, it’s just…football.  But the truth that there is a Savior who stepped out of eternity to become like us so that we could become like him? That’s true. Absolutely 100% true, and it means everything.

It means that when you and I find ourselves on the wrong side of a satanic avalanche…

When we find ourselves in the middle of an enemy ambush that has flipped our world from victorious to vicious…

When we get up off the mat after having struggled mightily only to have failed publicly…

We can look to the author and finisher of our faith – the King Jesus, born in a manger in order to be raised a Redeemer – and we will see that face.

[Tweet “King Jesus was born in a manger in order to be raised a Redeemer.”]

A face set like stone.

Resolute on his mission to rescue us and restore to us a hope that seemed lost…

A life that seemed gone…

A grace that we could never have earned.

[Tweet “The enemy that may rattle us will never rattle Jesus.”]

All because the enemy that may rattle us will never rattle Jesus.

He tried, but all he saw was a warrior’s face – set like stone – sending one message to our foe.

“I got this.”