Do you Love it?
A principle has been stirring my spirit of late. In an era where the most popular four letter words used by society are most often profanity, if you want to find the God designed path for your life, you must look first inside your heart. It is in your heart where you will find the Love necessary to do great things! God size things!
Some great advice I was given as a young man was to choose a profession you love. I was told, “Do so and you will never work a day in your life”.
The best way I can describe what I mean by this is by asking you the following. What is it that you love the most? For me the answer to that question has been a struggle at times. If everyone was honest, I believe we would all say the same.
For me, the answer to that question boils down to three answers. Jesus, family, and basketball. I would love to say they have always been in that order, but it would not be the truth.
I asked Jesus to come into my life as a young child. I was raised in church. My mother took me every time the doors were open, yet my 56 years on this earth have been marked by moments of growth and awakenings.
After losing two babies to miscarriage, then finally hearing my first son’s heartbeat in my mid twenties, I placed God in His rightful position of Lord and Savior of my life, then came my family and basketball became my ministry. However; it wasn’t until I was thirty years old that I finally went all in for my King.
Since going all in that day, not one day of serving my Savior has felt like work. Yes, I still love basketball, and I thank God for placing that love of a simple game in my heart. Basketball has become a vessel for sharing the Gospel with the world.
If you do not love what you seek in life, then what you seek will become work. You will never outwork someone who loves what they seek. No amount of money will motivate or fill the hole in your heart created by chasing the wrong dream or calling for your life. You can gain all the money or fame the world has to offer, yet at the end of the day, without love you fail. You see, Love Never Fails!
Without Love it is impossible to please God, and since God is love, His love must be what you seek. This is where it gets tricky. You have to avoid placing anything you love above God. I love basketball and early in my life, I made the mistake of allowing basketball to take priority over seeing my King. Even though I believe God gave me an uncommon love for basketball, He never planned for basketball to become my God.
There have been numerous moments in my life that I realized that as much as I love basketball, alone it would never bring me the joy I was searching for.
Many would say of my success, “It was a result of you working your tail off!” or “Nobody was willing to work as hard as you”!. The only problem with those statements is that it was never work, I loved every second of it. I was willing to endure whatever pain necessary, while at the same time refusing to quit when facing seemingly impossible odds. There is only one answer to why I conquered seemingly unclimbable mountains, LOVE!