Some years ago while I was coaching at a club in Europe I walked out of my office for some fresh air. As I sat down I began to watch another coach work with a player.
As I sat there I saw both of them, under his leadership, attempting to improve the players forehand. One could see that much effort and energy was being spent by both parties to find this elusive forehand that would be responsible for winning many more points in the future.
As I watched, I noticed that all of the focus was placed on the upper body and mainly on the movement of the tennis racket. Clearly one could be forgiven for seeing nothing unusual about this approach and focus point as after all isn’t that what one uses to hit the ball so that it goes back to the others side? You would think so on the surface, yet oddly the more they worked on this the worse things got.
Afterwards I asked the frustrated coach to look at the way that a building was built. He laughed and asked, “what for?” to which I replied with a smile, “this will help you see why all that hard work you were both doing wasn’t flowing or producing the fruits you are both hoping for.”
The next day he came back and said “well the only thing I can see about that building process is that they start first with the foundation and then build on top of that.” I smiled and said “so what is that showing you?” to which he replied, “that I am trying to work out how to build and enjoy the penthouse before laying down the foundations first. In other words I am trying to figure out the end of the shot instead of first understanding how and where it begins.”
You see the feet in tennis are the foundation and the beginning of each tennis shot. Not addressing the way a player moves and positions itself first will mean a player that will always be out of balance and therefore not able to experience what it is like to hit the ball the way it was always meant to be hit.
I am discovering that it is the same with the Bible and the message of Christ. Too many of us attempt to make the message and life of Christ work for us yet if we are honest for most of us is one disappointment and frustration after another. This I am coming to understand is because we are focusing primarily, and for many of us only, on the end of the story which means our view is out of balance and unsustainable.
In order to understand and see clearly the bigger picture we need to start reading from the beginning (foundation) so that when we get to the end of the story we can be balanced and have a real chance of seeing it work the way it was always meant to work in and through us. Believe me when I tell you that I get that the last part is after all what relates in a bigger proportion to our daily lives just like the tennis racket does when it comes to hitting the ball. Yet, like with the tennis stroke, Jesus said to Nicodemus there is something much bigger and deeper happening here and it has nothing to do with what appears obvious to our minds.
Today more than ever I understand why in this same conversation Jesus told Nicodemus in Aramaic that if we wanted to understand and see how this all was supposed to be and work we needed not to be born again or from above but instead “…from the beginning”
-pablo-
Photo by Hannah
