I’ve watched Alabama beat Georgia for the 2017 national championship more than once. I’ve actually watched a lot of replays of Alabama championships. I know. I know. Shocking.
If you’re an Alabama fan, you probably remember that game pretty well. Things were not looking good at halftime. Alabama was down, the offense was struggling, and freshman quarterback Tua Tagovailoa came into the game in the second half. I remember my son and I standing up in our bonus room with our arms folded, hoping for the best and preparing for the worst. When Bama scored that touchdown, we woke everyone up with our cheers.
Of course, I know what happens now. I know Alabama comes back. I know the game goes to overtime. I know Georgia scores first. I even know Tua takes a terrible sack on Alabama’s first play of its possession and suddenly it’s 2nd-and-26.
I also know what happens next.
That’s what makes watching the replay completely different from watching it live. The mistakes are still there. The missed opportunities still happen. The interceptions and bad plays haven’t magically disappeared because I’ve seen the game before. They just don’t make me panic anymore because I’m waiting for the ending. I already know the final score.
Turns out, that has a little more to do with following Jesus than I realized.
Week Six - Keep Running
We’ve made it to Week Six of our journey through Philippians at Thompson Station Church, and this week we moved into Philippians 3:12–21, where Paul describes the Christian life like a runner pressing toward a finish line.
It was also Tailgate Sunday at church, so everybody was wearing their favorite team’s jersey. There was Gatorade, grilling between services, and plenty of evidence that Christians can disagree strongly about important theological issues like which college football team God prefers.
David Nasser preached and joked that pastors tend to have their “jams.” He’d probably use tennis illustrations. Pastor Sam Landrith might bring up football or basketball. Another pastor friend of his talks about baseball all the time. David’s theory is that running must have been Paul’s thing because Paul sure used running and racing illustrations enough.
In Philippians 3, Paul says he hasn’t reached the goal yet. He hasn’t arrived. Instead, he keeps pressing forward toward the prize. Our Life Group guide describes Paul’s life as one focused on moving toward Jesus rather than wandering around the track, getting distracted, or constantly looking behind him.
David gave us three sightlines for that race: refined by the past, not defined by it; resilient in the present; and resting in our future. That last one really got my attention because David kept coming back to a phrase he had the entire church repeat:
“I am a war already won.”
There will be battles I lose. There will be days I don’t run particularly well. But because of Jesus, I already know how the war ends.
Remembering Isn’t the Same as Rehearsing
David made a distinction Sunday that I really liked. He said it’s okay to remember the past, but there’s a difference between remembering something and rehearsing it.
He used the example of the guy in his thirties who still shows up to every Friday night football game wearing his high school letterman jacket and class ring. There’s nothing wrong with being proud of what happened in high school, but at some point you’re supposed to take the jacket off and keep living. The past can refine us without defining us.
I’ve had to learn that when it comes to people’s opinions of me. I still want people to think I’m a kind person. I certainly hope people can look at my life and recognize that I’m an active follower of Jesus. But whether somebody particularly likes my personality doesn’t bother me nearly as much as it once did.
Apparently, I have more aura now. That’s what the kids would say, anyway.
Brighton wants me to help build his Homecoming float this year. He was talking to me about it and was a little concerned that the whole thing might become disorganized. Too many cooks in the kitchen and all that.
I told him, “You know I can’t turn me off.”
He said, “That’s why I want you there. I want you there, and I need you to be you.”
That made this Daddy pretty proud. He’s not asking me to walk in and take over. That’s not what I mean by leadership. I just tend to do what needs to be done, and sometimes that means speaking up when nobody else will.
I tell Brighton all the time that a lack of leadership creates a vacuum, and that vacuum will eventually be filled. It might be filled by a good leader or a bad one. If God has put leadership on your heart and given you the ability to help, I think there are times when it’s your responsibility to step into that void.
Younger Maury would have quietly offered a suggestion and hoped somebody liked it. Older Maury is more likely to offer the suggestion, and if everybody decides it’s a terrible idea, no skin off my nose. Of course, Older Maury may occasionally have a little too much confidence. Jesus is still working on me.
What meant the most about Brighton’s comment wasn’t simply that he thinks I’m a good leader. I hope he’s watched me do it enough that when he’s a husband and father someday, he’ll step up when his family needs him to lead. That’s the part of the past I want to carry forward.
The Unsubscribe Email
I’ve found another place where I’m getting better at not rehearsing things.
Every once in a while, I’ll open my email and see a notification from Substack telling me somebody has unsubscribed from Grit & Wit. I don’t like those emails. Who would?
When I first started writing, they bothered me quite a bit. I’d immediately wonder what I’d done wrong, and then I’d go back to my most recent article and start dissecting it. Was it something I said? Did I offend them? Was that article not very good? Should I have written something differently?
I could spend a while thinking about one person who decided they didn’t want another email from me.
It still bothers me a little. I don’t know that I’ll ever get to the point where I see an unsubscribe notification and celebrate. I know what it’s like to look at numbers and be discouraged, which is one reason I try to read and support other writers whenever I can.
The difference is that now the disappointment lasts a couple of minutes instead of a couple of hours. There are plenty of writers for everybody on Substack, and I trust that God will put the right people in touch with my writing. Also, I know some people don’t like their inbox full, so they just follow. It’s all good.
It’s really no different from someone visiting our Life Group and deciding another class is a better fit for them. It would be easy for me to take that personally, but if they feel like God is leading them somewhere else, who am I to get in the way of God moving in somebody’s life because I wanted another person in our class?
That’s something Younger Maury probably wouldn’t have understood. I’m learning I don’t have to win the battle of everybody liking me. I can remember the unsubscribe without rehearsing it, and then I keep running.
In the Pursuit of Perfection
Paul says something in Philippians 3 that I appreciate more the older I get. He openly admits he hasn’t arrived.
This is Paul we’re talking about. If anybody could have looked around the early church and thought, I’m doing pretty well at this Christian thing, you’d think Paul would have qualified. Instead, he says he hasn’t reached the goal or become perfect. He’s still pressing forward.
I understand that better now than I did when I was younger because the more you get to know Jesus, the more you get to know yourself. By that I mean you begin to realize just how different you are from Him.
I struggle with Bible reading. I struggle with prayer time. I struggle with rejection. I lose my temper. I get frustrated. I have days when I know exactly what Jesus would want me to do and still find Maury wanting to do something else. Daily.
Every time you start thinking you’ve got this Christian-life thing figured out, you probably need to look at Jesus again.
When I was teaching, I had a motto hanging above my classroom door: “In the pursuit of perfection, we find excellence.” I wanted my students to understand that none of them were going to be perfect. Neither was their teacher. But knowing perfection was impossible didn’t mean we stopped trying to do things well.
I think there’s something similar happening in Philippians 3. I’m never going to be Jesus. The more I know Him, the more clearly I can see the distance between His perfection and mine. But I don’t look at that distance and say, “Well, I’m never going to measure up, so why bother?” That’s insane.
Maybe tomorrow I look a little more like Jesus than I did today. Maybe I handle something differently. Maybe I’m more patient. Maybe I pray first instead of after I’ve exhausted every other option.
I’m not chasing perfection because I think I can earn my way to Jesus. I’m chasing Jesus because He’s already made me His, and I want to keep growing.
Break Glass in Case of Emergency
David’s second sightline was being resilient in the present.
He told a story about a church in Cuba that didn’t have reliable electricity, so they had a generator for backup power. Then he flipped the illustration around. In the upside-down Kingdom of God, God isn’t supposed to be our backup generator. He’s the source.
I think younger Christians sometimes treat God like He’s trapped behind a piece of glass with a little sign that says BREAK GLASS IN CASE OF EMERGENCY. I know I did. I’d handle it. I’d figure it out. I’d try another option, call somebody, come up with another plan, and only when none of that worked would I remember, Oh yeah. Maybe I should pray.
The older I’ve gotten and the more mature I’ve become in my faith, the more I’ve realized how much easier it is to go to Him from the beginning. He’s the first Person I talk to in the morning and the last Person I talk to at night, with plenty of conversations in between.
That doesn’t mean I spend the entire day walking around with my eyes closed in prayer. Life in the Wood house doesn’t really allow for that.
Right now, Karen and I have two elementary-school students, one middle-schooler, and one senior in high school. While thinking about this article, I realized that this time next year we’ll have a college student, a high schooler, a middle schooler, and an elementary student.
Good grief. Or as my youngest would say, “Bruh…”
Add my work, Karen’s work, Brighton’s new job, church, tennis, flag football practices and games, club meetings, household chores, extended family events, and everything else that gets thrown at a family of six, and our calendar gets interesting.
Currently, as I am writing this, I am sitting next to a hospital bed as my Mama just got a pacemaker. She is doing great, and I appreciate all the prayers for her. God is good. He is so good.
We have a calendar on the coffee bar that holds everything. Whenever one of the kids announces something happening in their life, the immediate response from Mama or Daddy is usually, “Did you put it on the calendar?” If it’s not on the calendar, we cannot be held responsible for missed appointments.
Apparently, the Oracle of the House is still employed.
People with fewer children sometimes see our schedule and look at us like we’ve lost our minds. To us, it’s just life. We’ve learned we can’t say yes to everything, and that’s okay. It’s busy and sometimes stressful, but there’s also a lot of peace in the middle of it because when we look around, we see the blessings.
David said Sunday that what’s inside is bigger than what’s outside. The external things can oppress us, but they don’t have to possess us. I like that because the calendar can be full without my soul being full of chaos.
God isn’t the emergency generator we fire up when the Wood family calendar finally breaks us. He’s where the power comes from in the first place.
Follow Me
Later in Philippians 3, Paul says something I’m not sure many Christians would be comfortable saying: follow my example.
Our Life Group guide asks how comfortable we would be telling a new believer to imitate the way we follow Jesus. That’s an uncomfortable question if you think Paul means, “Look at me because I do everything right.”
I don’t think that’s what he’s saying at all.
Could I tell my kids to follow my example of following Jesus? I think I could, but not because I always get it right. They know better than that. My kids have seen me lose my temper. They’ve heard me raise my voice. They’ve seen me take shots I shouldn’t have taken. They’ve also heard me apologize a lot, and I hope that’s part of what they imitate.
I want them to see a Daddy who loves Jesus, but I also want them to see what happens when Daddy doesn’t act much like Jesus. He admits it. He asks forgiveness. He gets back up and keeps running.
If Brighton sat beside me and said, “Dad, I keep messing up at the same thing. Maybe I’m just bad at following Jesus,” I know exactly what I’d tell him.
“So am I. So am I.”
Then I’d remind him that just as I could never stop loving him because he messed up, Jesus doesn’t stop loving His children when we stumble.
That’s the race I want my kids to watch me run. Not a perfect one, but a faithful one.
Battery Rechargers
Parenting can wear you out.
I love being a father. It’s one of the greatest blessings God has ever given me, but anybody who tells you raising children isn’t exhausting either doesn’t have children or has forgotten.
There are days when you’re correcting the same behavior again, driving somebody somewhere, trying to remember which child needs to be at which place at which time, or looking at that coffee-bar calendar wondering if there are actually enough hours in Saturday.
Then one of the younger kids gets scared during a storm and comes close because Daddy makes them feel safe. Or one of the kids lays their head on my shoulder. Or we’re walking through a store and one of them reaches over and grabs my hand.
Those are battery rechargers for me.
Every once in a while, they’ll tell me thank you for being a good Daddy or tell me that I make them feel safe and loved. Those moments don’t make the hard parts of parenting disappear. They remind me why I keep going through them.
Before David even preached Sunday, I mentioned in our Life Group the stories we’ve all seen of runners who collapse near the finish line. They’re exhausted and can’t go any farther, and somebody comes alongside them, puts an arm around them, and helps them across.
I think God gives us little moments like that. Sometimes He even uses the people we’re trying to help to give us enough encouragement to keep going ourselves.
I Know What Happens Next
David’s third sightline was resting in our future.
Paul ends this section of Philippians by reminding believers that our citizenship is in heaven. That’s where we’re headed. Our Life Group guide makes the point that this isn’t simply about where Christians go when they die. Knowing our destination is supposed to change the way we live right now.
The older I get, the more I long for heaven. Not necessarily the dying part. I’m good waiting on that. God and I have had several conversations on the subject.
But this world gets taxing. The injustice gets tiring. The ungodliness gets tiring. One of the hardest parts is knowing the Savior people need and watching them reject Him.
When I think about heaven, the first thing I usually think about is family members completely healthy and whole. Then I think about the people I’d love to talk to. David. The disciples. Billy Graham. People I’ve read about and studied for years. In my head, it’s a giant homecoming get-together, and Jesus is there.
Knowing that’s where I’m headed changes some things about what seems important here. I don’t need everybody to like me. I don’t need to keep up with the Joneses. I don’t need to win every disagreement or fight every battle. At this point in my life, I can probably count on one hand the hills I’m willing to die on.
Maybe that’s because I’m finally learning something I tell my family all the time: I can only control myself. And maybe it’s also because I’m beginning to understand what David meant when he had us repeat, “I am a war already won.”
The Final Score
David used a football game to illustrate that idea Sunday. Texas had been losing, and someone he knew had gotten discouraged and stopped watching. Later, after finding out Texas came back and won, he watched the replay. Watching the replay was completely different because he knew the final score.
I immediately thought about all those Alabama games I’ve rewatched, especially that national championship against Georgia. Tua can take the sack. It’s fine. I’m waiting for 2nd-and-26.
The mistakes haven’t disappeared. They just don’t make me panic because I know what’s coming.
That’s what I think we sometimes forget about the Christian life. There are going to be battles we lose. There are going to be mistakes. There will be things that hurt, prayers whose answers we don’t understand, and seasons when the scoreboard doesn’t look anything like we hoped it would.
But we know how the story ends.
David pointed out that someone can win all kinds of battles in this world. They can win the financial battle. They can win the popularity battle. They can have everything this world says matters. But none of those victories compare with knowing the Savior who has already declared the final victory.
Jesus is the prize. Because of Him, I don’t have to spend the entire game panicking over every third-quarter interception.
It Could Happen
While working through this week’s message, I wondered what 78-year-old Maury would probably laugh at 48-year-old Maury for worrying about so much.
One answer came pretty quickly: Grit & Wit.
I love this little corner of the internet God has allowed me to build. I love writing. I love hearing that something I’ve written helped somebody. I love watching the subscriber number grow. I also have to remind myself occasionally that the number is not the mission.
Today, Brighton joked that Grayson is going to be the one who really benefits if my writing career takes off because by then I’ll be able to buy his little brother anything he wants.
I laughed, but somewhere in the back of my head I thought, What if?
Brighton smiled and said, “It could happen.”
It could. Maybe Grit & Wit grows into something far bigger than I ever imagined. Maybe the books take off. Maybe I write a bunch more of them. Maybe opportunities come that I can’t even see right now.
I hope so, and I’m going to keep working at it.
But I don’t know that final score. I don’t know how many people will eventually subscribe to Grit & Wit, how many books I’ll write or sell, or where this whole writing thing will lead.
I’m learning that I don’t need to know.
There are a thousand little scores in this life God hasn’t shown me. The one that matters, He has.
So I’ll keep writing. I’ll keep being Karen’s husband and Daddy to these four kids. I’ll keep stepping into leadership when God puts an opening in front of me. I’ll keep apologizing when I mess up. I’ll keep trying to pray first instead of breaking the glass when everything else fails.
And I’ll keep running, not because I’m winning every battle or because I’ve arrived, but because I know Who is waiting at the finish line. I know the final score.
Because of Jesus, I am a war already won.
Live It
Paul doesn’t tell us to forget our past or pretend our present struggles don’t matter. He tells us to keep pressing forward.
Maybe this week, pay attention to where your eyes are. Are you rehearsing something from the past that God wants to use to refine you rather than define you? Are you so consumed by what’s happening around you right now that you’ve forgotten where your strength actually comes from? Or are you fighting a battle that seems enormous today but may not matter nearly as much when viewed through the lens of eternity?
You don’t have to pretend the bad play didn’t happen, and you don’t have to pretend the race isn’t tiring. Christians just aren’t running toward an unknown finish line.
Our citizenship is in heaven. Jesus has already secured our future. We know the final score, so let’s keep running.
Dinner Table Devotional
Read: Philippians 3:12–21
Paul openly admitted that he hadn’t arrived yet. He wasn’t perfect, and there was still growing to do. Instead of allowing that to discourage him, Paul kept pressing toward Jesus.
He also reminded the Philippians that their citizenship was in heaven. Knowing where they were going was supposed to change the way they lived while they were here.
That’s true for us, too. Following Jesus doesn’t mean we’ll win every little battle or never make another mistake. It means we know Who we’re following and where He’s taking us.
Talk About It
What’s something from your past that has helped shape you but doesn’t need to define you?
Why do you think Paul admitted that he still hadn’t reached the goal?
Would you be comfortable telling someone else to imitate the way you follow Jesus? Why or why not?
What’s a battle you’re spending a lot of energy fighting right now? Will it still matter five or ten years from now?
How should knowing that our citizenship is in heaven change the way we live this week?
Pray
Jesus, thank You that we don’t have to run this race alone. Help us learn from our past without living in it, depend on You in the present, and trust You with our future. When we stumble, help us get back up. When we’re tired, give us strength to keep going. Keep our eyes on You instead of all the little battles around us, and remind us that because of what You’ve already done, we know how the story ends. Amen.