“When he came near the den, (King Darius) called to Daniel in an anguished voice, ‘Daniel, servant of the living God, has your God, whom you serve continually, been able to rescue you from the lions?’”
– Daniel 6: 19-20 (NIV)
Somebody will fumble or throw an interception or drop a pass or blow a coverage in Sunday’s Super Bowl. A Patriot will jump offsides. A Seahawk will miss a block.
In football, that’s not a good thing. The pain the player feels will be real.
Still, it’s entertainment. It’s not being in the lion’s den. It’s not trying to feed a family on a tiny salary, despite working two jobs. It’s not a troubling health diagnosis. Although a mistake in Sunday’s game could be, depending on the situation at the time of the hiccup, the worst thing to ever happen in that person’s athletic life.
No matter the level of pain and disappointment, each error is an opportunity for faith and courage. For sure, discouragement will visit us all. Because of that, it’s nice to have this in your bag:
“A hero is not fed on sweets,
Daily his own heart he eats;
Chambers of the great are jails,
And head winds right for royal sails…”
So wrote Emerson, a man who, like the rest of us, was unable to dodge failure and disappointment. But in a way at least similar to what Daniel felt, Emerson saw the advantage of chaos and trouble: opportunity to learn and to prove. And to improve.
It wasn’t until the tragedy of 9/11 that the New York fire and police departments developed a plan, void of ego, for working together instead of separately during a crisis.
The same goes for a massive subway station in London called the Underground, the violent site of a fire fatal to more than 30, mainly because the Underground’s leadership had not thought through the implications of its childish, ego-driven work structure. As recounted in Charles Duhigg’s The Power of Habit, it was only AFTER an inevitable rush of gross surgical errors in a Rhode Island hospital did the workers there – administration, surgeons, nurses, everybody – humble themselves to completely turn the organization around from one of the worst hospitals in the state to one of its finest.
Crisis can be a good thing. Maybe it helps us understand we’re on the wrong path, or maybe it helps us understand how much we need God.
In a ballgame, you know how much time you have to overcome crisis. In real life, you never do. There’s a clock, but not one we can see.
Real life often refuses to offer us the luxury of self-pity.
You might recall how David answered King Darius: “My God sent his angel, and he shut the mouths of the lions. They have not hurt me, because I was found innocent in his sight…”
When you see the lions, refuse to be discouraged. Victor Hugo, French author of Les Mis and The Hunchback of Notre Dame, seems a wise man. “Have courage for the great sorrows of life and patience for the small ones,” Hugo wrote. “And when you have finished your daily task, go to sleep in peace. God is awake.”
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Contact Teddy at teddy@latech.edu
