Walk On
Dear Champions,
The short excerpt is by Alan Williams from his book Walk On, and the Scripture is Mark 10:45 For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.
The one glitch about the Wake Forest basketball team meeting room was that there were not enough seats on the sofas and chairs for all 16 players to sit. Consequently, there were three or four stools directly behind the sofas-and this is where I always sat. On days we met, I naturally passed over the sofas and sat on the steel stools.
For whatever reason, this particular day was different. I walked into the locker room, got a Gatorade out of the cooler, and sat down in one of the big leather chairs. It was an ambitious move, but I was tired of sitting on the stools. As I sat down, one of the members of the basketball staff immediately confronted me and said, Come on man, let Josh and those guys sit in those chairs.
I conformingly nodded my head, got up from my seat, and made my way back to my stool. I did not know it at the time, but Josh Howard happened to be right behind me and had heard my exchange with the coach. He said, No, go back and sit down. Alan is sitting there today, Coach. I will sit on one of the stools back here. The assistant coach, of course, could not say anything to Josh. On that day, for the first time, I listened to the scouting report from the big leather chair. Josh made me forget that I was a walk-on.
Josh Howard was the star of our team and probably does not even remember what he did, but I do. He played all of the minutes and scored most of the points. Conversely, I was the walk-on, who rarely got minutes and hardly ever scored points. To this day, whenever I think of Josh Howard, I never think about the fact that he was the ACC player of the year or that he was a first-round NBA draft pick. Instead, I think about the one day that he cared enough to give up his chair for a walk-on.
Josh in many ways reminds me of what Jesus did for me. Jesus had a throne in heaven at the right hand of God, yet willingly and humbly gave up his seat to come to earth to save sinners like me. And because of this undeserved grace, I am confident that even walk-ons like myself will one day have a seat in heaven-the greatest seat of all.R
Champions, have a great week!-David Vining
Posts
