Nuclear Over-Reactor
By Grant Gaines
Tony Dungy was one of the more successful NFL coaches of this generation. Dungy led the lowly Tampa Bay Buccaneers to multiple playoff appearances and after he left, his players and defensive schemes were two of the leading factors why they won the Super Bowl the following year.
After moving on from Tampa, Dungy landed in Indianapolis where he coached the directionless, undisciplined Colts to an unprecedented seven 10+ win seasons during his seven years as the head coach there. Dungy even went on to eventually climb the “Mount Everest” of coaching by becoming the first African American head coach to win a Super Bowl title in 2007.
But what made Dungy so effective was not his fiery personality nor his elaborate defensive schemes. On the contrary, the quiet and calm Dungy was notorious for how skinny his playbook was and how plain-Jane his team’s schemes were. All of this flew in the face of the conventional wisdom of the NFL at that time which believed the more confusing the schemes were and the thicker the playbook was, the better. Dungy, on the other hand, stuck to his belief that running one play with extreme excellence was better than running hundreds of plays with mediocrity.
Legend has it that Tony Dungy would have his defense run the same scheme-“The Tampa 2”-over and over and over again until his players were sick and tired of that play. And then he would run it some more.
The reason Dungy was so adamant that his team run this same play over and over was because he knew that executing in practice while the conditions were perfect was much different than executing during the crunch time of a playoff game. It’s easy to act one way, it’s a completely different ballgame to react a certain way.
The same could be said about our faith. We know that James 2:17 (NIV) says that, “…faith without action is dead.” But maybe a better translation would be to say that “faith without reaction is dead.” You see, it’s relatively easy to act like Jesus. It’s a lot harder to react like Him-just ask Peter.
John 21:15-19 tells the story of a time when Jesus asked Peter three times, “Do you love Me?” Peter, of course, answered all three times with, “Yes Lord, You know I love You.”
Peter had the luxury of time on his side and therefore was able to deliberately calculate his response. However, at the end of Luke 22 we read of a time when Peter was in a proverbial back-against-the-wall situation and we see his raw, uncalculated response.
Jesus had just been betrayed, arrested, and was now going to be questioned at the house of the high priest as Peter followed from a distance. Peter must have been in an emotional mess because we learned earlier in the chapter that he had just stayed up all night with Jesus, had watched his Best Friend get wrongfully sentenced, and was apparently braving a cold morning as the Scripture records that the crowd who gathered outside of the high priest’s house wasted no time huddling around a warm fire (Luke 22:55).
No longer were the conditions perfect and no longer did Peter have a chance to think about his response when out of nowhere three consecutive strangers asked Peter if he was a disciple of Jesus. I know you know how Peter responded to their questions but before we look at his answer, let’s consider Peter’s personality for a moment. Peter was by far and away the boldest and brashest of the disciples. He was a “ready, shoot, aim” type of a guy. Peter had no trouble rebuking Jesus after Christ told His disciples that He would have to die for the sins of the world in Matthew 16 and then later had no trouble giving God a lesson on what was and what was not appropriate for him to eat in Acts 10.
And yet, when Peter was under the gun, he responded to this simple True or False “do you know Jesus” question by adamantly denying Jesus. When he was given time in John 21 to think about his answers, he made the right choice. When he was backed into a corner and forced to give a swift response, he reacted in an unfortunate manner.
The same sad reality could happen to us unless we are careful to learn from Peter’s mistakes. You see, right before Jesus was arrested in Luke 22, we read that while he should have been praying along with Jesus, Peter and the other disciples were sound asleep.
I’m sure Peter had no idea what the following hours would hold-the stress, the anxiety, the pain, the fear, and the confusion. If he had known that any of those emotions would arise at such intense velocity in just a matter of moments, I think we are safe to assume that he would have been fervently praying rather than sleeping in those precious moments leading up to crunch time.
But just like Peter, we have no idea what the rest of our days, weeks, months, or years will hold. Certainly some of them will be filled with laughter and joy, but as we are promised multiple times throughout Scripture, we will go through many difficult seasons of trial.
And as it has been said, trials don’t build character, they reveal it. In other words, you don’t rise to the occasion when you are faced with a difficult season of life, you fall back on what you have always done.
That is why we must be so careful to guard our hearts (Proverbs 4:23), be weary of what we watch on TV, be mindful of what we listen to on the radio, and be conscience of what thoughts our minds are dwelling on while we are in seasons of abundance. Because it is in these seasons of blessing that we are forming our habits and telling our minds how to react when we get sucker punched by life.
If you put junk down in your heart, you may be able to hide it for a while, but you can be sure that as soon as life starts pushing you around what’s down in the well will come out in the bucket. Just as junk food tastes good for a moment but can be detrimental to your health, living in sin or an unholy lifestyle can be fun for a season but will eventually overflow into sadness and personal destruction.
By the way you are living right now, are you going to be pleased with the way you react when times get tough?
“Watch your thoughts, they become words;
watch your words, they become actions;
watch your actions, they become habits;
watch your habits, they become character;
watch your character, for it becomes your destiny.”
-Chinese Proverb
Comments? Questions? Suggestions?
