“Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.” — James 1:2-4
>> Sign up here for Sports Spectrum devotionals sent right to your email inbox <<
If you’ve ever been cut from a team, you know how devastating that feeling can be. You start to ask questions of yourself and wonder if you’re good enough or worked hard enough. Feelings of inadequacy and comparison start to take over. For pro athletes, their sport is how they support themselves and their families. Getting cut can put them in a desperate situation where they’re scrambling to land on a roster somewhere else.
It’s a tough time for any athlete at any level when they get cut. I remember not making the freshman baseball team in high school and being so despondent that I immediately called my dad in tears to deliver the news. The embarrassment I felt the rest of the day at school was immense, and I just wanted to crawl into a hole and seclude myself from my friends who made the team and were celebrating.
Something I love about sports, though, especially as an activity for young people, is how often the lessons we learn from them are directly applicable to life. When you’re cut from a team, you’re faced with a decision to give up or to keep persevering. You can let being cut define you and decide your future, or you can let it motivate you and persevere through it by becoming a better version of yourself.
The same is true in life when you lose your job, a relationship fails, or anything else doesn’t go your way and you experience loss and disappointment. We know these things will come in life, and thankfully we have a playbook for how to respond.
The Bible is full of teaching about perseverance, such as in James 1:2-4 (above), which tells us to consider our trials as “pure joy.” We know our suffering produces perseverance, and our perseverance produces character. That character produces hope, which does not put us to shame (Romans 5:3-5).
Hardship is never fun in the moment, but as Christians we can embrace them differently than those who aren’t in Christ. We’re promised that our suffering will ultimately be for good so long as we persevere through them.
I decided to hang up the cleats after being cut and instead poured my effort into tennis, which ended up being a good choice. I recognized baseball may not be in my future, but I kept the faith that God had something else planned for me to use my athletic ability in some way. More than 20 years later, I’ve made a career out of tennis by coaching at the high school level. God worked it all out for His good.
My prayer is that you’ll persevere through your trials and continue trusting in God’s plan. Your story may end up looking different than you hoped or imagined, but a lot of the time that ends up being a great thing.
— Cole Claybourn
>> Do you know Christ personally? Learn how you can commit your life to Him <<
>> Dive more into God’s Word with Sports Spectrum through the YouVersion Bible App <<
If you would like to submit a devotional, please email all submissions to
devotionals@sportsspectrum.com