There I knelt, on my left knee, over toward the blue corner.  My opponent had turned toward the neutral corner and the referee began the count.  I picked up his words on about five.  I attempted to gather myself as the blood dripped from my nose onto the already blood stained mat.  The crowd roared for the hometown favorite, which wasn’t me, as I tried to maintain my crumpled position.

I managed to gather myself and arise on six.  When competing at a high level as I was, even getting up from a knock down is a trained response.  Arising on six, I looked the referee in the eyes, I steadied myself by staggering one front slightly in front of the other.  Upon the referees command I outstretched my gloves for him to wipe on his shirt.  I responded with the correct answers to his trivial questions.  These trivial questions were to determine if my brains were scrambled so much I couldn’t continue the fight, ‘Do you want to continue?’, ‘What day is it?’

I ended up losing that ten round bout and a United States Title I held at the time.  The entire fight was a series of mistakes, from negotiations, to changing trainers, to my training regime, it seemed everything that could go wrong did go wrong.  Especially that straight right hand I failed to defend in that round.

Looking back, it makes me see now even with more clarity, that God does care and does protect you even when we don’t acknowledge Him.  I was a Christian then, just like I am now.  I may have not been fervently seeking His will and following his tenants, but I was a good guy then, so why did this pinnacle achievement during my comeback, go wrong.

Was God punishing me?  Was he enjoying the fact that I had gotten punched in the face-really hard?

Of course not, God loved me then just like he loved me now.  I was knitted in my mother’s womb.  I was fearfully and wonderfully made.  Each step of my life was planned out and numbered even before I was born.  The Creator said so.  Then why couldn’t I defend that incoming blow and retain my belt?

Thirteen years later, I can see now, it wasn’t the fight or the title that were important.

It was the process!

The process I went through before that moment, during that moment, and now after that moment.  The Master’s plan is ambiguous to us many times.  God sees the entire time line: from creation to rapture, to a new Heaven and a new Earth.  We only see a short term of that with our finite vision and perception.

I read somewhere that when bad things happen, it’s our job as Christians not to ask why, but to ask who, and discern how glorification of the Creator can come from this event.  That’s not the easiest thing to do when you’ve just lost a love one who you were so close to you knew each other’s thoughts.  It’s not easy when, a friend stops by your office to tell you he’s got cancer and only six months to live.

When this stuff happens God still cares.  Regardless of how forgotten and downtrodden you feel today, in comparison to where you’ll spend eternity, it’s just a drop in the bucket.  Paul said, ‘to be absent the body is to be present with the Lord.’  Once we do leave this big mud-ball called earth, we’ll get that promotion and then the ‘why’s’ and the ‘where were you when’s’ won’t even matter.

When you look back over your life, I’m sure you can see where even a back-slidden Christian was loved and cared for by an Omnipotent God!

Keep Kicking and God Bless!