Jens Pulver
Some folks think 9 degrees is too cold to go for a morning run. I laugh at such thoughts.
The frigid air circling in my pipes awakened my lungs like water in the face. The snow scrunched under my feet, making the pounding in my knees and ankles much easier. The sun shone upon the snow between the shadows of naked trees with a blinding magnesium brightness.
As I approached the steepest, longest hill, I laughed to myself and thought; "It'll take more than this to keep me from running."
It's been a week since Urbana09 ended and I've found myself wrestling with the thoughts I had before and the thoughts I had after.
Before Urbana09 I found myself watching some interviews with the first UFC LIghtweight Champion Jens Pulver. I heard him talk about what drives him, what sort of legacy he will leave, as well as how he fights daily with anxiety and depression. This man has overcome a childhood that he describes as a "daily hell." At one point his alcoholic father lined him and his brothers up and pointed a loaded shotgun in his face before telling him, "You're not worth the shells."
Since then he has become a legend and pioneer in the sport of Mixed Martial Arts. Now as he comes to the end of his fighting career, he has opened up his own gym in his home town that he also wants to use as center for troubled youth and battered women.
Mr. Pulver is driven. I remember watching his five round war with Urijah Faber for the Featherweight Championship that had me on my feet all five rounds. That hooked my interest back in the sport, which was a major catalyst in me getting off my ass and working out again. Pulver says in an interview, "It's all about legacy," and asks what kind of world will we leave our kids?
Urijah Faber (R) vs. Jens Pulver (L)
I came to realize a little over three years ago that I have a legacy, and this is when I was mired in my mid-twenties crisis. And it's not that I ever became a youth pastor, teacher, or young life staffer with the intention of building a legacy, but is a testament as to who God is and His faithfulness. And I thought if I never accomplish anything else I will be content.
I am as driven and determined now as I ever have been. I've accomplished more this year than I thought I could. It's not due to my talent, drive, work ethic, intensity, or any of those, it's because God is at work inspiring both the will and the deed according to His glorious purpose.
I wasn't as big a fan of Mr. Pulver until I learned his story. Now I'll watch his fights, highlights, and interviews before I workout.
Colin Harbinson told us the more a story moves us, the more we want to live in it, and the more it lives in us.
The story; and by story I mean the idea of metanarrative, that is the grand epic narrative that is greater than us and we live by, is that "The Word has become flesh and dwelt among us. We have seen His glory, full of grace and truth"
"the Light has entered the world but the darkness did not overcome it"
It's a humbling thought that God became a man. That what is invisible became visible. What is intangible, became tangible. What is divine became human, lived, breathed, drank, ate, and defecated so that we can become one. Ramez Atallah calls this the means, message, and the model by which we are to live.
My mentor, Will Wyatt loves to tell us that God invites us to walk beside Him. All that God the
Father has promised Christ, He'll share with us; God wants to share His very existence with us.
As we do, He'll bring people beside us who we will point back to Him. As we do we will learn to trust
God with more sooner, and run to His altar all the faster.
I'm convinced when we bow to Christ as Lord in all things, He incarnates Himself in us, everything
that happens to us will be for His glory and for our benefit. For it is only by the grace of God are we
able to do anything for the glory of God.
This is our hope. Not is Washington DC. Not in Wall Street but in the God who put on skin, entered
our reality, moved into the neighborhood so that we can know us and He can live in us.
Patrick Fung told us to live to be forgotten so that Christ can be made visible. When we live to
make Christ known, He will raise us up as He sees fit. Our ultimate reward is not to have pages written
about us in history books so we have the applause of men, but in the Lamb's Book of Life where God tells us
"Well done!" For there are none anonymous to God.
I can think of no greater legacy than to live under the sovereignty of God and let Him raise me up in His own way.
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