by David Zahl
There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.
Galatians 3:28

We do not engage with God according to what we can bring to the table. Our real relationships with God begin when we are exposed, when the law does its deconstructing work. And our fabricated identities need to die! The purpose of the law is to bring people to their knees, looking to the One who has justified them already.
Football coach Urban Meyer tells about how his father pressured him to compete. At a time when Urban knew he didn’t have the skill to continue in baseball, he told his dad he was quitting. His father informed him that if he quit, he would no longer be welcome in their home. As an adult, Urban embraced that performance-related mind-set of his father, going on to win back-to-back national championships as the coach for the Florida Gators. But these victories were short-lived because every time they won, the screws just got tighter and tighter. So much so that anything but perfection was viewed as failure. Then Urban started to have worsening chest pains. And a few hours after the Gators finally lost in 2009, he was found on the floor of his house, unable to move. He’d finally come to his breaking point.
At one point after his breakdown, Urban went to see his father, who was in the hospital. There was a report on the television about the possibility of Urban taking a job at Ohio State, and his father said, “Hey, you gonna do that?”
“I don’t know,” Urban said. “What do you think?”
“Nah,” his dad responded. “I don’t care who wins or loses.” Never before had Urban asked his dad for an opinion and not gotten blunt advice. In fact, in his father’s answer there was a measure of absolution.
Three days after his father’s funeral, Urban accepted the job at Ohio State. But this time his approach was entirely different. Instead of signing a contract with the school, he signed a contract with his family—that he wouldn’t be missing any more of his kids’ games and he wouldn’t be working more than sixty hours a week. It was a contract of love, and born out of tremendous deconstruction of identity. He was a new man.

Thought to Remember for Today

Christ is our Mediator. In Christ our hope is found. This simply means we are judged not according to our wins or losses, but on the basis of Christ’s action and identity.

Fitzpatrick, E. (2016). Grace untamed: a 60-day devotional. Colorado Springs, CO: David C Cook.