The fragile nature of our lives was illustrated this past Saturday night in the Ole Miss/Auburn football
game.
It was a great game pitting #4 Auburn against #7 Ole Miss with significant national playoff and championship implications. Back and forth the game went. Ole Miss led 17-14 at halftime. Auburn rallied to a 28-24 lead at the end of the third quarter. Early in the fourth quarter, Ole Miss took the lead 31-28. Auburn again rallied for a touchdown and a 35-31 lead. In the final minutes, Ole Miss was driving for the lead. They faced a crucial third and four at the Auburn 20 with 1:39 left in the game.
Then came the play. Star receiver, Laquon Treadwell (who had a monster game to this point), took a receiver screen at the 22, broke two tackles inside the 15 and headed for the end-zone, the lead, probably the win, and a great seat on the road to the SEC championship and possibly the college playoff.
That is when everything quickly changed.
Auburn linebacker, Kris Frost, hit Laquon Treadwell at the 3 yard line. As Frost dragged Treadwell to the turf right at the goal-line, Frost rolled onto Treadwell’s ankle, breaking his fibula and dislocating the ankle. Treadwell fumbled, understandably (I can’t image the pain of that moment.), just before he crossed the plane. Auburn recovered the ball in the end-zone. Touchback. They ran out the clock. Game over.
Oh how the picture changed for Ole Miss in just a matter of seconds. One moment – victory, and all it meant, within just a few feet. The next moment – devastation on several levels.
The crowd sat stunned to grasp what had happened. I sat stunned watching on TV as well. (Honestly, my heart starts pumping as I type and re-read this, recalling the drama.)
Ole Miss is now a two game loser and out of the national playoff picture as well as the SEC West contest. More importantly, they lost their top receiver for who knows how long.
Do you see how this game shows just how quickly things can change in our lives, just how fragile life really is?
But we don’t want to admit that. It is too threatening. If you are like me, you live with a sort of denial or at least a lack of awareness of this reality. We go about thinking, rather foolishly, “something like that would never happen to me.”
However, those things do. Maybe not on national TV, but, we all face things like cancer, lost jobs, gut-wrenching phone calls, broken marriages, and wayward children. We all have to deal with situations that happen in a twinkling of an eye that change our life radically – sometimes for long periods and sometimes forever.
Last summer, I had a motorcycle accident. One moment I was riding down the road on a beautiful summer Saturday morning with two of my friends. The next moment I was flying and flipping 30 feet into the air, my motorcycle flipping right behind me. My life changed in that moment. Those changes could have been much more permanent, even forever, but this time they weren’t. I escaped with a few broken bones and a gash that would heal.
I was reminded then of this reality – of how our lives can change in an instant. I was reminded again on Saturday night.
How are we to live with this reality of how quickly life can change, how fragile life really is? Are we to deny it? Or are we to live petrified by it, certain that “something like that will happen to me?” Or are we to not worry about it and focus on just the immediate around us? Or should we be armored up against it?
Since last summer, I have become more aware of these “what could happen” as I move through life. I don’t know if that is a result of my accident and my fears running wild or just a new awareness of what was there before but I never realized. Or something more. Either way, I regularly see things happening before me and others – these kinds of life changing incidents. The question is not just a theoretical one.
I ask it again – How are we to live with this reality of the fragile nature of our lives?
While some would advocate one of the previous strategies mentioned or some variations of them, I would suggest we find solace outside ourselves. I would suggest that we find peace and hope in the fact that, while we are not in control and neither ultimately are others, there is one who is and who is good, who promises to work in and through and over – ALL. Not just some, but ALL.
The Apostle Paul said it the following ways
- “There is…one God and Father of ALL, who is over ALL and through ALL and in ALL.” Ephesians 4:4,6
- “For from him and through him and to him are ALL things. To him be the glory forever! Amen.” Romans 11:36
- “And we know that in ALL things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.” Romans 8:28
These verses do not result in a “pollyanna” like view of a world of only good. Rather, they acknowledge the reality of bad and of a God great enough to redeem all that is bad and make it good.
This God and his sovereign control over all reality stands in stark contrast to the chaotic, out of control world we seem to live in that can make our lives feel so fragile.
The choice we face is which perspective we will embrace. The one leads to those fear-driven, controlling strategies that really don’t work. The other leads us to the One who, as the God of hope, longs to “fill you with joy and peace as you trust in him, that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.” (Romans 15:13)
Which one will you choose as you admit the fragile nature of your own life?
