It happened--the game clicked, its spacing and pacing, form and fire. Maybe it was his new haircut but Boden Wiley Derfler looked Romanesque in Saturday's playoff game where he charged the floor like a matador and the Boilermakers secured a big win. He’s a beautiful creature, and it showed in his game.
He excitedly got out to me on the bench, mid-game, that he had finally grown tired of losing, and decided to do whatever it took to win.
A change of will, I could see it.
He added, “I don’t know how players don’t smile when they make a shot, I try not to but I can’t help it.” He beamed a joy only gained by first suffering defeat.
Awwweeee, the pure joy of a young athlete finding their lane. Youth sports are my jam, yo. And coaching is the BEST!!!
For me, and now my son, it is one of God’s great gifts, competitive play, and the sweet smell of victory now and again makes it all the sweeter.
We’ll ride high on this performance for a while and the level up to a new way of walking. With it will come new challenges, for sure, but the moment is forever captured in the vibration, or shall I say incessant bouncing in the halls, of our beings.
If you've ever cheered with the throngs or gladly jumped up time and again to keep the wave alive in a thundering stadium. If you've cheered for your guy from the pits of a race or stormed a field with excitement. You know the feeling.
Most remarkably to me this season, I saw Boden learn that he had to create his own space. This is often the case when many around you are beginners too, the screens don't get set, there is no timely pass, no one to lead you.
This is where leaders emerge to create their own space. By so doing, they can, in strength from a good position, both command the floor and show others how to do the same.
His teammates and classmates, Leif and James and Liam, learned this and began to see the fruits. Leif backed into the lane, James called in post-up passes followed by his smooth turnaround jumper, and Liam took it to the lane with purpose.
Soaking it in reminded me of the incredible space that Jesus made. Consider that EVERYONE who's ever taken the time to read his words agrees, it was a beautiful, awesome, glorious space.
On Earth it is in Heaven. Did you know if you want to know what a heavenly human looks like, you can just look at Jesus?
Many are groaning everywhere and shouting into the abyss, trying to drum up some army of their own, often in weakness and in echo chambers. Nobly, perhaps, they want to take on the unimaginable evil but lack power and have not fully considered the cost.
To say it another way, the Greatest tragedy of my life is knowing that so many right around me have failed to simply look at the space Jesus made, and are thereby prevented from accessing the most powerful power of all.
Many are tripped up by what they see in Christians, blinded to the nature of the holiness of God and the sheer ridiculousness that fallen people are worthy of comparison to Jesus, man, yes, but also God.
Y'all, God is two things:
1. great, and
2. visible to you.
You know it in your heart, it's all too vast, too creative, too designed. 80-90% of people I've polled around the world across all classes admit: they have had some experience with the eternal, something unexplainable, something great.
On our very best day, we don't measure up.
On our worst day, comparatively, we're not far off from our best day.
The chart of our vaporous little life, from God's perspective, is a graph that's as smooth as the face of a pool ball (though, zoom in and its jagged as heck!).
What do we do with this straight-line little life that we live?
Take up good space, from a position of power, yoked with and therefore sharing space with the one who became a gate to supernatural love, Jesus. It's so counterintuitive and upside-down from what most of us see.
Seek and find Jesus (maybe in my writing) - that's my hope.
In closing, among the many great lessons from this season, the top level learning from this Season In Court is this: Our only real choice in life is to determine the degree to which the line of our life points to God, and he's the only one who can move the arrow so in an instant we do a 180°. PTL.
Y'all ball out wherever you are!^^^
Coach Ryan