"Your Most versus Your Moment"

Never Sacrifice What You Want Most For What You Want For The Moment

Genesis 25:27-34

This quote was given to me many years back from a person whom I have a great level of respect and appreciation for. During the off season (a few months before camp would begin) many playesr would take a month to go into some intense and demanding training. All of this was preempted by the fact that what lie ahead could produce one of the greatest rewards in our profession, “a Superbowl championship.” Going into training  I found myself excited about the possibilities of what could be produced from this time of training.

Yet when I found myself actually engaged in this training, and experiencing excruciating pains associated with the rigors of hard work, there was only one word that seemed to come to mind, “QUIT!” Long gone was the joy and anticipating of working out, lost in the agony of my pain was the potential of becoming the great player that I always dreamed to be, eliminated from the equation was the visions of working harder than anyone else at my position. Instead my body (through pain) continued to beckon my mind to just “give up!”

Struggling just to make it through, no longer concentrating on the disciplines and techniques needed to compete at the highest level,  and at times unable to finish the drills due to unbearable pain. I could hear the voice of my mentor, my friend, and my coach. “Never sacrifice what you want most, for what you want for the moment!” The echo of his voice and the bellowing sound that seemed to scream louder than my pain, could be heard in my soul, “never sacrifice what you want most for what you want for the moment.” 

This statement means so much to not only professional athletes preparing for a marathon season, that was sure to bring both adulation and consternation. But it is also meaningful to every person that believes. It means something to those who are carriers of a dream, pregnant with vision, sweating with passion, and confident they have a purpose. “The life we live is replete with possibilities, and yet so stingy to the weak minded.” “The difference between realizing a dream, and turning a vision into reality is always delineated at the place in which some give up, and others continue on.” 

I am confident of this, from time to time “we all want to quit!” Quit our marriages, quit trying to be a good parent, quit trying to be a good neighbor, quit being honest, quit in anything you have to put effort into. But it’s important to find out, what is it that will make you continue on? What makes you press forward where others have stopped? What makes you find that second wind, widen your stride, pick up speed, and don’t give up? What makes you ignore the “real time pain?” I found it to be in this quote, “most versus the moment.” 

“Pain only last for a moment," if we continue to press on, or "pain can haunt you for a lifetime," if you quit.

You will be haunted more by the things you quit on, when you know you had more to give, then by the things you couldn’t do because you simply had nothing left to give. God is looking for people who know the value of what is “most” important, versus what will last for a “moment.” Thirteen years removed from professional training, I still hear the voice of my friend Gil saying “never sacrifice your most, for this moment.” 

Next time we will look at Jacob and his brother Esau, and how a most versus a moment scenario played out in their lives.

“Live for the MOST and not for the moment”

God Bless You!

Darryl