“Send out your light and your truth; let them guide me. Let them lead me to your holy mountain, to the place where you live. There I will go to the altar of God, to God—the source of all my joy. I will praise you with my harp, O God, my God!” –Psalm 43:3-4 (NLT)
I spent the first 20 years of my life completely consumed by my goal to become a NCAA national champion wrestler. I ordered my entire life around eating the proper diet, cutting ridiculous amounts of weight, sticking to a rigorous training regimen, and finding a collegiate team I thought would put me in position to reach my goals.
After a disappointing ending to my high school wrestling career, I made the decision to walk-on to the Oklahoma State wrestling team, a team that had won the national championship the previous year. I believed with all of my heart that under the right circumstances, with the best training partners and coaching staff, I could do anything I put my mind to and redeem a disappointing ending to my high school career.
In the athletic world, my “pearl of great price” was to win a national championship. I sold my soul to achieve this goal. No sacrifice could get in the way of what I wanted to achieve. Whenever I won a match, I couldn’t contain my joy. But I never won enough to hold on to that joy. Something deep inside my heart told me that even a national championship wouldn’t be enough to fill the hole in my heart.
Over four hundred years ago, Blaise Pascal wrote some of the truest words I’ve ever read:
“There is a God-shaped vacuum in the heart of every man which cannot be filled by any created thing, but only by God, the Creator, made known through Jesus.”
Ultimately, I fell short of my goal to become a national champion wrestler. But this failure was a gift. This gift of failure opened my eyes to the deepest longing of my heart—Jesus Christ—"the source of all my joy.”
Reflection Questions
How do adversity and failure reveal your deepest longings?
In what ways are you inviting Jesus to fill the deepest longings of your life in the midst of hardship or disappointment?
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Sean Collier spent 25 years living and serving overseas in Japan (where he met his wife Alice in 2001) and Cambodia. His passion is to mentor, coach, and empower leaders to grow in intimacy in Jesus so they may live out their calling with confidence, passion, and greater strategic impact wherever God has called them to serve. Sean has been married to Alice since 2002. They have three children (Kadin, Rylee, and Logan) and minister out of Hattiesburg, Mississippi.