My life as a broken play

To the uninitiated, football looks like a game where a bunch of people run around until someone gets open and receives a pass. In reality it is much more planned out. Each down of professional football follows a carefully designed ‘play’ where each individual player is given an assignment. For the offence, blockers are told exactly who or where to block, receivers are given specific routes to run and running backs are given directions for running, blocking or receiving. Looked at on a whiteboard the play looks impossibly complex but without it the team would have little chance of scoring against a good defence.

The problem comes when the play breaks down. Usually this happens when a defensive player slips through the line untouched and forces the quarterback to run for his life. He probably only has a few seconds before he is tackled and so he stops waiting for the pre-planned play to take shape and scrambles to toss the ball to whoever looks likely to catch it. This is what is known as a ‘broken play’. A team that has more than a few broken plays in a half is probably on its way to losing. It is no longer following the plan and looks for all the world like a chaotic game of parking lot football.

Sometimes I feel like my life is a broken play; as if the plan that I was supposed to be following has been lost and I am just coping with life from day to day. Like the fleeing quarterback there are days when I am able to complete a pass and feel that I have done something and others where I wonder where all the time has gone. The last couple of months were a case in point. I was working unusually long hours and my autistic son wasn’t sleeping well and needed my help to settle down at one or two in the morning. The lack of sleep and exhaustion started to settle in after the second month and life seemed to grow fuzzy around the edges.

I think the problem was compounded by my upbringing. I was raised to think that life had to be filled with a wonderful purpose for it to be meaningful. Perhaps this was not so much the fault of my parents but of Christian biographies I read where famous preachers lived lives of perpetual victory for God. Sometimes I see this in my Facebook friends who have perfect families, awesome ministries and cool jobs.

When I head down this path in my mind it helps me to focus on the good that being in the middle of a broken play can do. It seems contradictory but being there may accomplish God’s plan in me. It helps me to be ‘poor in spirit’ and rely on Him for my sense of identity. Jesus lists this as a principle for how I am to live in Matthew 5. It’s hard to believe that that is a beatitude and not ‘blessed are the optimistic’. I think a broken play in life can force me to turn to God for help. It is so easy to take pride in my accomplishments when things are going well.

It’s interesting that the Bible has some instances where key people experienced a broken play in their lives. Moses was raised by Pharaoh’s daughter and seemed in the perfect position to bravely lead the Israelites out of their slavery. Most of us know that he eventually did this, but not everyone remembers that there was a period of time where he had to flee Egypt and live in the nation of Midian. For years he worked as a shepherd there seemingly without any grand purpose.

Similarly, David spent years being chased around the desert by Saul and then by his own son Absalom. Sometimes I have wondered why God allowed this to happen. It seems like such a waste of time to allow such great leaders to lie fallow when they could have been changing the world. Yet it looks like God is not nearly as worried about this as I am. It could be that David needed that time in the desert to develop his relationship with the Lord to prepare him to write all of those Psalms. But no where does God condemn those men for lack of effort. It’s almost as if the broken play was from Him.

I hope that I am in the same boat. I joked with my wife this morning that I only feel like writing about this because it is Monday. By Wednesday I might write an article on, “How to Peak at Optimum Performance” but right now I can’t stand Wednesday me. No doubt there are points in my life where I need to make more effort to get back on track with God, but maybe there are seasons of life where I can be happy to just complete the day. Those who have recently lost a job or are going through a time of depression know what I am talking about.

Jason Gayoway
Published in The Daily Herald Tribune May 28, 2015

http://www.dailyheraldtribune.com/2015/05/28/my-life-as-a-broken-play