The View from Seven Feet

One thing I really like about being 7 feet tall is that I don’t have to tread water at the deep end of the pool!  Here I am standing on my flat feet in an area where most people would need to use a lot of energy to stay afloat.  There is something to be said for being on firm ground even as the water rises.I remember challenging my sister to an endurance competition of treading water with your hands out of the water.  At the time, I was about 6 foot 10 and she was about 5 foot 8.  As she worked her hardest to stay afloat in the lake, I moved my body with what appeared to be the same exertion.  She was amazed that I was able to last as long as she was, especially because I kept saying how tired I was getting!  As she began to wear out, I could hardly keep from laughing because I was actually just standing on the bottom of the lake pretending that I was competing fairly! 

I took my daughter Carly (known as Gracie on Multiply) to Disney’s Blizzard Beach water park the other day.  We had a blast on the water slides and in the wave pool.  When we went to the deep end of the wave pool, she was sure glad that I could still touch the bottom.  She could grab hold of me whenever she got a little tired.  Two young teenage boys were also out in the deep end near us.  They looked a lot stronger than my daughter, but when they got tired fighting the waves, they had nobody to hold on to.  They would grab the rope that marks the end of the swim zone and try to rest.  The life guard kept blowing his whistle for them to let go of the ropes.  You know, when you are somewhere that you shouldn’t be for too long, it becomes easier to grab hold of stuff that you shouldn’t.  But my daughter could go out into the deep because she had a giant who could touch the bottom. 

It’s best to go into the deep with someone who knows how to navigate it.  Just a thought.

Have you ever felt stuck in someone else’s mold? As you can see with me sitting in this full-size car, one size doesn’t always fit all. All too often, we try to fit people into a mold that we want them in. We try to make people more like us, or more like what we think we need, or more like what seems to be most useful or convenient. Whether it is a preconcieved notion about a person’s ability, a prejudgment on another’s motive, or too quick a determination about another’s likeability, we can often see people not as they truly are, but as we assume they are. How many times in life do we miss the value and uniqueness in people because we prejudge them without getting to know them well?

Not only can we miss the opportunity to see people and their personality for how it really is, we can often misjudge people’s giftedness. As a church leader, I am often responsible for helping people discover their God-given gifts, talents, and passions. I often help people get activated in serving God in a meaningful way. It is critical for leaders to look at people as individuals and evaluate them as God has made them, not as we need them to be in order to advance our agenda. When we focus on our agenda rather than their destiny, we end up squishing them into something that is not their best fit. I encourage you leaders out there to take the time to get to know how God has wired the people you lead. Don’t jam them into the only car that doesn’t have a driver. Get to know them and put them behind the wheel of the right car for them.

As a former NBA player, I understand the type of commitment it takes to excel at the highest level.  When I signed my first NBA contract, my agent congratulated me by telling me how rare my achievement was.  He said, “Every year, of the over 6 billion people on the planet, only about 300 play in the NBA.  Every year, of the over 6 billion people on the planet, about 4,000 get struck by lightning.  In other words, you have a 13 times better chance of being struck by lightning than you do of making it to the NBA.  Congratulations!”

The same principles that it takes to play in the NBA are the same principles that it takes to do anything great.  It begins with a vision for which you would be wiling to pay any price.  When you are 7 feet tall and come from an athletic family, it is a little easier to figure out what you may be called to do.  But being called and skilled are not the same things as being successful.  I still had to see where I wanted to go and pursue it sacrificially over many years.  I played basketball competitively for 14 years before I began my 7 year professional career.  Life’s greatest achievements don’t come over night.  They are forged through years of commitment to a vision. 

You may not have the same obvious roadsigns (7 feet) pointing to your destiny.  But let me encourage you to seek God and find out where He wants you to be.  Stay on the road, and at some point, you’ll look around and see that He has taken you places that few others ever get to see!