In October of 1987, I was a freshman in high school and I got my first break at a starting position on our freshmen football team. We traveled to Russellville to play their freshmen. Our opponent were very good. As seniors, they would go on to win the Class A state title. As the freshmen game began, our coach (we only had one coach on staff at that time for freshmen, he did all the coaching and drove the bus), began yelling at the defense the entire game, “Bend, but don’t break.” It took me four quarters of football and six overtimes to figure out what he was saying. By game’s end, I was the most tired and sore that I had ever been up to that point of my life. But, our victory made it all worthwhile. I was not concerned that it was a Thursday night, I was an hour and a half away from home, and I didn’t have my homework complete. After our sandwiches, chips, brownies, and drinks that wonderful parents had prepared, we trudged up a big hill to the bus, hopped on, and settled in for what was going to be a tiring, but sweet ride home. While waiting for my favorite coach to start the bus, he yells, “I can’t find the keys.” I’m thinking, “He’s tired like us and has just misplaced the keys.” As he begins to look around, we realize we need to help look for the keys as well. No keys were found! This is 1987; no one had a cell phone! Coach Duvall had to tell one of the parents to find a payphone and call the transportation director. Someone had to drive an hour and a half to bring us another set of keys! What overshadowed the events of the evening and made a lasting impact on me was the phrase, “Bend, but don’t break.”
We all deal with enormous challenges that make a little football game for fourteen and fifteen year olds seem so small. So many of us are dealing with insurmountable challenges and uphill battles this very minute! Our health, too much month left and not enough money, missing that one who was our partner in life, grieving over a relationship of a family member, or has someone we love strayed away from Christ, or do we feel the walls of life closing in for various reasons, are we struggling with the consequences of bad choices? Friends and family let us “bend, but not break!”
Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians is centered on the idea that he is writing to express his thanksgiving for those who seek to repent and to appeal to those who seek to spurn his teaching. Paul reminds them and us that we might be “cast down, but we are unconquered!” 2 Corinthians 4:7-10 says, “But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellence of the power may be of God and not of us. We are hard pressed on every side, yet not crushed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed- always carrying about in the body of the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body.” May we remember, because of Jesus, even in our weak state, we may be banged up, but we are not defeated. Because of Jesus, we may feel persecuted, but we are not destroyed.
If we will submit our life to Christ, we may deal with a long challenging life that may go into many overtimes, but with Christ, we will know the victory. I can still hear those words on a cool, fall night, “Bend, but don’t break.” May we seek to hear, “Well done, good and faithful servant…Enter into the joy of your lord.” (Matthew 25:21).
