After He had removed him, He raised up David to be their king, concerning whom He also testified and said, “I have found David the son of Jesse, a man after My heart, who will do all My will.”
~Acts 12:22
I played basketball from fourth grade through high school. Our varsity team wasn’t very good. We stunk. I think we won four games my senior year. In fact, out of 900 students, only seven played varsity basketball. Three games my junior year come to mind. The first one we started the game in a Stall Offense to prevent the future state champions from scoring 100 points.
It didn’t work.
Another game started with one teammate ineligible ended with myself and another teammate fouling out of the game. We finished the game with four players on the court.
We lost big.
We lost a lot.
But one game I broke a tournament record for most rebounds in a game. We still lost every game of the tournament.
I was a brick-layer, but I could usually box taller players out and get the rebound. Manhood is similar.
It’s not the shots you take in life that count but how you crash the boards after failure. Men are remembered by their ability to rebound after a missed shot. It’s not whether or not you will fail that matters. We all fail. Look at the Bible. It’s riddled with failure after failure. King David, the giant slayer, and “man after God’s heart” (Acts 13:22) committed adultery, was a horrible father, and was a murderer! But God called him a man after His heart because David mastered the rebound—he always bounced back.
Failures don’t define you. Finishes do. It’s not how you start that matters. It’s how you finish. You don’t have to be the best. You simply have to outlast the rest.
Keep crashing the boards.
You’re called to impact your world of influence. When you get this those around you will start to win. But you’ll fail often. Crash the boards anyway. You’ll miss the shot often. Crash the boards. And keep crashing the boards until the ball goes in the bucket.
One anonymous poem drives home my point, “You cannot go back and make a brand new start my friend, but you can start right now and make a brand new end.”
Crash the boards. What failures do you need to rebound from?
