Seems everyone's quoting Tebow to insult or praise. I must be stuck with the fever:
"This is an opportunity where great things can happen and lets
be great right now. Everybody believe and we went out there and
achieved it because our faith and our relentlessness to keep fighting."
His faith is making big news, but we're going to focus on the second part - relentless fighting. Tebow wasn't born a national championship football quarterback or with a superbowl ring on his finger for that matter. What did it?
Time, effort, and determination are needed.His life was a project that was anything but determined. It could and can turn out any which way.
Our life's a PROJECT that requires effort, thought, determination, belief, vision. But when we recognize this, look at what our project is, lower our shoulder, and go at it, good things happen.
John Paul II is one of the best examples, one of the best projects. In his own words, "All men and women are entrusted with the task of crafting their
own life: in a certain sense, they are to make of it a work of art, a
masterpiece."
But this didn't remain on his lips but was something that we witnessed. His life was crafted moment by moment in war torn Poland, his university studies, pastoral work as a priest and bishop, and ultimately on the world stage as one of the most important religious and moral leaders of last century.
He forged his life one moment at a time and it was perhaps most incredible in his final moments of suffering. Two images stick with me from his last days, and they show me the man he was. Him clasping the crucifix in his chapel during the Way of the Cross on Good Friday and giving his last address from his window.
This is not weakness or failure but real strength and success. St. Paul tells us how we should finish up the project of our lives.
"The time has come for me to depart. I have fought the good fight to the end; I have run the race to the finish; I have kept the faith; all there is to come for me now is the crown of uprightness which the Lord, the upright judge, will give to me on that Day" (II Tim 4:6-8).
He shaped his life year by year, hour by hour, moment by moment. After shipwrecks, beatings, stonings, and about anything else we can imagine, his project was almost complete.
What about ours? What's missing? What tools do we need for this project? How will we become men like Tebow, John Paul II, St. Paul, or whatever God calls you to?
That's what this blog is about. Stay posted!
