"Be wise, my son, and bring joy to my heart; then I can answer anyone who treats me with contempt." - Proverbs 27:11
I was 16. I had just gotten back from Black Mountain, North Carolina and the Fellowship of Christian Athletes National Conference. It had been a mountaintop experience on a mountaintop. I was spiritually higher than ever before.
And I was probably too zealous.
I had never really talked about Jesus to other people. So, like a teenage boy calling a girl on the phone for the first few times, sharing Jesus the first few times was filled with awkwardness and butterflies.
My football teammates were less than impressed.
In fact some, were downright mean.
I was crushed.
I went to our head football coach, Fred Walton, not because he was the head football coach, but because I knew his heart. It was strong and, at the same time, gentle.
Somehow in my spirit I knew that, in the words of today's verse, Coach Walton could "bring joy to my heart; then I can answer anyone who treats me with contempt." (Proverbs 27:11)
He and I sat together, just the two of us, at the top of our very large gym. It was like we returned to the mountaintop, which both lifts up your heart and also from which you can gain perspective.
Coach Walton gave me strength and renewed my joy. I came to realize that, of course, it wasn't him, but it was the Holy Spirit of the Living God working through him and through the faith that God had worked in him.
I would need every ounce of it because a couple months later, I broke my ankle at the start of the 2nd game of my senior year. Once again, some of my teammates ridiculed me, my abilities, my previous football awards, and my faith.
I was depressed.
But Coach Walton, physics professor Wally Owens, and Coach John Brooks were all men of God's Spirit in Christ, who daily encouraged me and were God's instruments for restoring some semblance of joy.
I am forever grateful.
And I want to thank God for them by doing for others what they did for me.
Indeed, for all of us who will believe that Christ is truly alive and wants to work powerfully in us and through us by His Spirit, we can be world-changers and heart-restorers for others in the name of the LORD.
"Be wise, my son, and bring joy to my heart; then I can answer anyone who treats me with contempt." - Proverbs 27:11
Praise God!
Pastor Chris
"The gospel is the story of Jesus [what God's only Son has done for us that we can't do for ourselves], spoken as a promise." - Robert Jenson
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