Thinking of my years in the ministry as a football field, let’s suppose I’m in the red zone now. The final twenty yards before arriving in the end zone.

A lot of great friends have blocked for me, some have shoved me forward, and I’ve been thrown for losses a few times. Couple of times I tripped over my own feet. Sometimes, a friend gave me a hand up and each time I stood back up and groggily re-entered the game.

Now, when you’re in the red zone is no time to be looking back and counting your accomplishments. You still have a job to do. So, you’ll get none of that here.

After all–ask any football player–my assignment is not to take out a notebook after each play and count up the yards I’ve gained and jot them down. Someone above is watching and recording it, is counting and taking notes.

When the game ends there will be plenty of time for looking back, for interviews, for regrets and back-slapping, for celebrating in the locker room.

I started this game understanding nothing at all about what I’d gotten myself into. I knew none of the players, was clueless about the rules, and hadn’t the foggiest what my assignment would be.

I knew one thing only: I’d been drafted.

The Coach had wanted me on His team. That was a high honor and a fine compliment. I’m confident plenty of others were shaking their heads and questioning His judgment. “He’s a weakling.” “What has he ever done to justify this?” “So, what’s his role going to be–water boy?”

I would have been happy to have been the water boy, but the Coach had bigger plans.

He put me with some star players who had been at the game for some time. Instead of ignoring me–they had to have been tempted!–they took me under their wings, they taught me, mentored me.

Check the hall of fame plaques the next time you’re near the Coach’s office and you’ll recognize some of the names of these champions who nurtured and encouraged, who chastised and rebuked and dressed me down, who built me up and picked me up and straightened me out.

There’s James Richardson. George Harrison. Joel Davis. Larry Black. My big brother Ron McKeever. Chester Swor. Lawrence Bryant. Baker James Cauthen. Grady Cothen. Landrum Leavell.

I was tempted to take steroids a couple of times. Some strange salesmen appeared near the locker rooms, promising exotic results if I’d enroll in their classes, take their pretty pills, and do things their way. The training I’d been involved in to that point consisted mainly of hard work, sweat and grunting, aches and pains, and daily discipline.

A shortcut would be nice, I thought.

Some of the older team members–a couple of those hall of famers above–warned me off that track. One said he’d tried that and it was a dead end road. “There’s nothing but disaster at the end of it.” I stayed on course.

I remember the first time one of these champions encouraged the Coach to give me the ball. That was scary and I didn’t think I was up to it.

That’s when I made a discovery. It goes like this….

When a player follows the game plan scripted by the Coach and when he works with his colleagues as a team, it’s amazing what he can do.

We were really moving the ball.

Listening to the cheers from the stands, you might have thought I was a one-man team. But I knew differently. I knew that without the quarterback and the blockers all around me, I was nothing. Serious football fans know. Draft a Heisman player and put him in the backfield with a sorry line in front of him and he’ll look terrible.

I was injured a couple of times. We thought one of them was going to be career-ending. The Coach, however, had other plans.

He got me some good help from the trainers–these are people who don’t carry the ball themselves but see their role as taking care of those who do–and before long, I was back on the field. It was a great feeling.

Looking back, I see that after my injury I was a different player. I was more patient, saw the field differently, leaned on my colleagues more, and was not so head-strong or self-centered. It wasn’t about me any longer.

I’m grateful for the injury, although it was no fun at the time.

The best part of the game is when we’ve just run a play the way the Coach designed it and it picks up a few yards and I glance over at Him on the sidelines. Now, He’s not a back-slapper or a cheerleader, but the player knows. You can see that little gleam in His eye. He’s proud of you.

I’m grateful for those who bring the water or tape my ankles or tend to my cuts and bruises. This game would be a lot harder without them.

I’m so thankful for the team I’m working alongside today. Most of the guys I mentioned above have left the field now, and some of them are in the stadium cheering on the rest of us. Sort of a “cloud of witnesses,” you might say.

These days, Don Davidson and Chuck Herring are two of our stars. There’s David Crosby and Fred Luter. Rusty Thomaston. Chip Henderson. Jim Caldwell and Mark Joslin. Carl Hubbert. Bryan Harris, Dwight Munn, and Lonnie Wascom.

If you haven’t heard their names yet, stick around. You will.

Pretty soon–the timing is not up to me–I’ll be crossing that goal line into the end zone. The cheering will be deafening, but I’ll not hear it.

I’ll be finding the Coach, looking to see what He’s thinking.

I just want to please Him. The newspaper stuff is okay, but no player of any note pays any attention to that stuff. They’ll forget you tomorrow.

The cheering from the stadium is good, but if they carry me off on a stretcher, in a few minutes I’ll be forgotten and they’ll be hollering for the next guy. No player can live for the raves of the crowd.

It’s all about the Coach.

To feel His hand on my shoulder when it’s all over and to hear Him say something like, “Well done, good and faithful servant. I’m proud of you.”

That’s as good as it gets.

That’s to die for.