Blessed to be Broken

In season 4, episode 2, of the tv show “Friday Night Lights,” titled, “After The Fall,” Coach Taylor is approached by some seemingly random guy at a gas station in Texas. If you’ve not watched this show, let me just say, Texas takes their high school football pretty seriously. Like, it’s almost life and death with them.

Coach Taylor seemed to have it all being head coach of what appears to be the most prestigious high school in Dillon, Texas. But, things don’t always last, do they?

After an awesome couple of seasons, Coach Taylor is pretty much gets fired from his job due to some petty, and greedy know-it-alls. Not to worry, he gets offered the position of head coach at, well, let’s just say, a lesser known school that has a pretty bad reputation.

He takes the coaching job, and soon realizes it’s a disaster. The football team at East Dillion high school is less than mediocre. The field has been severely neglected and the locker room is in shambles. The equipment, and attire for the team is raggedy. The first game of the season is forfeited by Coach Taylor because he feels his team is too worn out and injured to finish. To say he’s disappointed, and dismayed is an understatement.

I mean, he seemingly went from being king of the world, to prince of fools. To top it off, his new players are furious with him for quitting on them.

Enter in random guy at a gas station. Coach Taylor is sitting in his truck with a heavy heart, minding his own business. At the other gas pump, some guy decides to ask for directions. As Coach Taylor is giving directions, random guy interrupts and immediately starts giving him unsolicited advice.

In a nutshell, random guy tells Coach Taylor he’s lost his inner pirate. Can you imagine? He goes on to say, and illustrate with his hands, he’s swinging his sword too low, and needs to raise it higher. He wraps up his little speech by telling Coach Taylor, we don’t know why God lets things happen, and he may just be the luckiest guy alive, and doesn’t know it. Then random guy turns, walks off, and drives away leaving Coach Taylor befuddled.

I thought to myself, well isn’t that a fine how do you do, and isn’t that just like God to show up when you least expect Him it!

No doubt we’ve all had those down in the dumps Coach Taylor moments after riding high on the mountain top. It’s easy to forget those high times when life throws you down to the ground, and you can’t see past your circumstances.

But God sees past them. And His plan is already at work in ways you’d never see coming. I get that this is a tv show, but if you look back over the course your life, I bet you can see when some random person, at some random time, was placed in your life to remind you who you are. By the way, that’s not random to God, that’s a divine intervention.

And that sword random guy referred to, before it ever became about a pirate sword, it was and is about the word of God.

Hebrews 4:12 states:

“For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.”

Arrrr, Matey, take that!

Ok, let’s wrap this up. Wherever you are, YOU are not forgotten. There’s nothing God doesn’t see. Why things happen the way they do is not always for our understanding. But, at just the right time, God will show up in your life to remind you, who you are, or most importantly, whose you are.

So, get that sword back up, and deflect the enemy’s shenanigans because one day, I guarantee, you’ll be that random person God sends to lift another up. And that my friends is an honor and a gift!

Have an awesome day filled with love and laughter.

Fun fact, random guy in the video clip is played by Michael Leach, an actual football coach. 😎🏈