Former NFL quarterback and outspoken Christian Tim Tebow recently shared some advice his mother had given him on dealing with the disappointment of losing. Tebow recalled the motherly wisdom while sitting down for a conversation with author and pastor Joby Martin.
“One of the best pieces of advice I’ve ever gotten, and it was from my mom…” Tebow said.“I’m young, playing sports and I’m very emotional…I would want to get interviewed. I would want to say thank my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, right? And she’d say, ‘Why don’t you say it when you lose, you know?’”
“Just say it in your head,” the start athlete said, before explaining how he was taught to take all his troubles and sorrows and lay them at the feet of God. “Say it in your disappointment after you have a bad play. Give it to the Lord. Like literally in that moment. He can handle it, you can’t. Give it to him.”
Joby Martin shared the clip on his Instagram page, captioning it, “God can handle your disappointment. Praise Him not only through the highs but the lows.” This piece of invaluable wisdom reminds all Christians to put their trust in God at all times, including the good and the bad.
Tim Tebow suffered one of the biggest disappointments in his life when he was cut from the Philadelphia Eagles. “It really hurt to be cut from football,” he explained in his book “Shaken.” Tebow added, “But you have to ask: what’s the lesson I’m supposed to learn from this? What does God want me to do from here? That’s how you keep from getting bitter.”
As a prominent athlete Tebow was subjected to intense criticism. “You’ll never silence the critics. There will always be people in your life who will underestimate your potential, say that you’ll never reach your dream or make that goal, or try to hold you back in some way. What God knows about us is more important than what others think.”
The Christian Tribune reported on other comments from Tim Tebow, where he spoke about his continual fight against human trafficking. Tebow noted that he and his team call upon the Lord to help them combat the spiritual warfare when they fight the evil industry.
“The night before Jesus goes to the cross, He tells His disciples, and they don’t really get it,” Tebow noted. “A lot like me! Sometimes, you just don’t really get it. But He said, ‘For in Me you have peace. In the world, you will have trials and tribulations, but take heart, I have overcome the world,’” he continued, quoting John 16:33.
He further explained how they fully anticipate encountering trials in their arduous mission but find peace in Jesus Christ. “And we need to remember that where we find peace is in Him; we know there’s going to be trials and tribulations, but we can take heart,” Tebow said. “We can choose courage.”
Featured image credit: Jeffrey Beall from Colorado, USA, CC BY-SA 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tim_Tebow_(5040576290).jpg