Last night, the San Antonio Spurs dismantled the Miami Heat to win a fifth NBA championship since Tim Duncan was drafter by them in 1998. The teamwork of San Antonio was too much for the talent of South Beach, leading to blow outs in the four games the Spurs won. Tim Duncan (From Wake Forest, of course) is the cornerstone of that team. He has even taken less pay so the management could keep the team in tact and add better players. His nickname is "The Big Fundamental" because his basic skills are solid. What sets Duncan apart from many other outstanding players in the NBA today is that he stayed four years at Wake Forest rather than turning pro early. Since his Sophomore year at Wake Forest, he was pressured to turn professional because he would have been a high draft pick. However, Duncan stayed in school, graduated from Wake Forest and was the number 1 pick in the 1998 draft. He wanted to stay at Wake Forest to earn a degree and because he felt like he still needed to learn more basketball before going to the NBA. It seems to have worked: He has been an All-Star fourteen years, Rookie of the Year, two-time NBA Most Valuable Player, and the only player to be named to the All-NBA teams and All-Defensive team in his first thirteen seasons. He has created the Tim Duncan Foundation to raise general health awareness and fund education and youth sports in various parts of the United States. His personal motto is a nursery rhyme his mother taught him, "Good, Better, Best. Never let it rest / Until your Good is Better, and your Better is your Best."
Most of you probably know of Tim Duncan, even if you are not a sports fan. Do you know any of the names on this list? Larry Hughes, Ricky Davis, Al Harrington, Rashard Lewis, Korleone Young, Lamar Odom, Jonathan Bender, Corey Maggette, Leon smith, Darious Miles, DerMarr Johnson, Jamal Crawford, Donnell Harvey, DeShawn Stevenson, Kwame Brown, Tyson Chandler, Eddy Curry, Eddie Griffin, DeSagna Diop, Rodney White, Gerald Wallace, Omar Cook, Ousmane Cisse, Alston Ford, Dajuan Wagner, Amare Stoudamire, Qyntel Woods and Jamal Sampson. Do you know what all of these people share in common. These are all basketball players who were drafted between the years 1998 through 2001 who either were drafted in the NBA right our of high school or only played one year of college. A couple of these have been NBA All-stars, but none has had a career that comes remotely close to matching Tim Duncan. Can you imagine how much better these men would have been had they gone to college for four years? They could have walked away with college degrees, which would have provided opportunities beyond basketball. They could have refined their skills under a much less glaring light in college. They could have naturally matured into young men rather than having the pressure of notoriety and money thrown at them too early in life. I just wonder how much better their NBA and post-NBA careers would have been had they approached college the same way as Tim Duncan. Unfortunately, we will never know. We also will never hear about or see the vast number of young men who declare for the NBA straight out of high school or after their freshman year of college who never get drafted or play a minute in an NBA game. All of these players are good enough to have earned a college scholarship, but none of them took total advantage of that opportunity.
(Qyntel Woods on draft day 2002)
Learning fundamentals is the key to being successful in life. Rarely do we stumble upon something in our foolishness and it bring success in our lives. This applies to sports, finances, a career and even our faith in Christ. If we look at Saul (Who later changed his name to Paul), we see how this plays out in our faith. In Acts 9:19-26, we see that immediately after his conversion, the disciples in Damascus disciple and trained him, even though he was already a very learned man. Then he went to Jerusalem where he joined the Apostles after Barnabas intervened, when he received even more training. Before moving on to do any mission work, he developed the fundamentals of his faith. Because of that solid foundation, he became a powerful instrument of God's Spirit in the early years of the Church.
So how are you doing with learning the fundamentals of our faith? I don't mean showing up to church because showing up for church does not insure maturity and growth. It actually can lead to a false sense of security which will falter when put to the test. Who has disciple you? Who has taken you under his/her wing to insure that you learned the basics of the Christian faith? Have you been walked through understanding the joy and discipline of studying the Bible? Have you learned to pray? Have you been challenged to tithe? Has any trained, modeled and prepared you to share your faith? The list goes on and on? The Church in America is weak because she lacks fundamentals. We buy into every lie our culture throws at us or pseudo-churches throw at us because we do not understand and apply the truth. We don't not memorize Scripture. We do not spend time in God's Word every day. We do not approach life through the lens of prayer. We do not have anyone in our lives who holds us accountable for our walk with Christ. So we easily fall for many of the deceptions Satan throws at us. The word we often use is "discipleship", which means we are more than an observer, but we become a participant by learning from others who are more mature in the faith. Being a disciple takes hard work and an attitude of humility, but the pay-off is well worth it.
For those who are a part of Hillcrest Baptist Church, we can offer you the opportunity to have this happen. We have a six month ministry designed to move someone from young in the faith (No matter how long they have been a Christian) onto a path of maturity in their faith. Six months will not make you mature, but it will give you the tools and the opportunity to begin that journey. If you will enter into this journey and complete it, I guarantee you will never be the same. You will become a much more effective instrument of God's plan than you ever thought you could be. Six month may seem like a long time, but what you learn in those six months will propel you beyond where you would have been in six years doing what you are doing now. So give me a call and let's get started on the journey of a life-time so you can become the Big Fundamental in your faith!
No comments:
Post a Comment