Several weeks ago my favorite team,  the University of Oregon, and the one I played for in college,  looked like a shoe in for not only their league title,  but they were also ranked 2nd in the nation.   Their quarterback was even the top prospect for the Heisman trophy which is  award given to the best collegiate player in the nation.  All they had to do was win out against inferior teams and they were a lock.

 But all of sudden disaster hit,  and the quarterback went down crippled with a season ending knee injury.  Bam!  That was it.  They lost to a vastly inferior team.  Over,  finished,  kaput.   Everything went south.

But for those who were paying attention something shone through that made it all worthwhile.  Across the field from the Oregon bench was the coach of the other team.  Wild eyed and crazy, screaming profanities at the referees ranting and raving at his assistants and players, you would have thought he was losing the game.  His whole staff was turning on itself, and yet they were ahead by ten points.    You would have thought providence would have smiled on the Oregon team just because the other coach was such an ass, but the Oregon fortunes continued from bad to worse as other Oregon players fell in battle; and,  to add insult to injury referees made intolerable calls,  so obviously wrong that it seemed rediculous even to the casual observer.

 But there it was,  the silent message coming through.  For there on the Oregon side stood the head coach of the battered and wounded team.   Without grimace without rancor, without fear, steeled within himself like a captain sailing into the fiercest of storms,  with enormous waves raging over the prow and sails torn with shattered mast, he took it all, and did not even once wince at the unfolding catastropheto his beloved team.   The total loss of a Cinderella season, perhaps a season which comes only once in a lifetime, he took it all, and didn’t even blink.  What a contrast with the coach on the other side, and what a metaphor. 

I can remember when the coach of the Miami Heat had just won the Nba championship several years ago.  The memory has stayed with me now for a number of years.  Barely had the realization settled that they had won it all and accomplished their dream when up on the podiums the were heralding how they were going to do it again next year.  “And we’ll be up here next year, they said.”   What?  They couldn’t even enjoy the present season,  and they were already looking to next year.  Why?  Why could they not enjoy,  and on the other hand why did one coach stand out against the other?

Because it’s not about the external goals being reached it’s about the journey, and who you become along the way.

The Kingdom of Heaven is within.