The Lord sometimes has to short-circuit even our best plans for our benefit.”
—Tony Dungy
Tony Dungy knows about success, but also bitter disappointment. After a stellar football performance in high school and college, he signed on as a free agent with the Pittsburg Steelers, winning a Super Bowl ring in 1978. Before long he started up the ranks of NFL defensive coaching.
Meanwhile in 1996, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers had one of the worst records in the NFL. Desperate for fresh leadership, they hired Tony Dungy as head coach. This job was the realization of his dreams. He re-designed Tampa’s defense, famously instituting what is now called Tampa 2, and developed work-arounds for the team’s problem areas, and built the Bucs into real contenders.
Then came a devastating one-two-three punch. The Bucs lost in the playoffs, Tony’s mother died, and a few days later he was fired from his job as head coach. I actually remember a video some news team took as he walked with his head down out a back door of the team headquarters carrying things from his office. But when he got into his car with the news team filming every dejected step, he says he felt his faith kick in.
He may not have known it at the time, but Tony was on his way to Indianapolis, where he would lead the Colts to Super Bowl victory and lay claim to being the first African American head coach to do so. But why here? Why not Tampa Bay? Why the short circuit? I don’t have the answers.
But one thing I do know, we don’t learn much from our victories. All our really valuable lessons come from losses and disappointments. Maybe Tony never would have been able to take the Bucs to the Super Bowl. Maybe if I had not been paralyzed for a time, I wouldn’t have the relationship I have with God. Even a “perfect” life includes short circuits, stops and starts, and ups and downs. Like Tony, our job is to feel our faith kick in, to tap into the muscle of the Word, and determine to get through.
Jim
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