"And the Lord heard your words and was angered, and he swore, 'Not one of these men of this evil generation shall see the good land that I swore to give your fathers...." Deuteronomy 1:34-35
Thus began Israel's 40 years of wandering until the evil generation died off. Even Moses himself (Deut 3:23 - 29) would not see the Promised Land for his disobedience. Thus we see Israel shaped by the wilderness to refine the people to conform to God's ways.
This leads me to this thought when it comes to sports and having been born and raised in Houston, only to leave when I was 40 years of age. What exactly did the people of Houston do, in my 40 years of life there, to be cast out into the sports' wilderness to never taste victory? (Okay, the Rockets did twice in the 1990's which people are quick to point out Michael Jordan was on his self-prescribed hiatus - but following that logic means any championship earned after he left basketball was because Jordan was no longer in the game.). Still, 40 years of a city invested in pro football and baseball (The Astrodome is a considerable investment) yielding no championship is a long time (and now only one championship tainted by scandal - the curse, my curse, continued causing me to end the relationship).
What were the sports' gods angry with us for? For starters, mediocrity from ownership. They were committed to finishing in the middle or less. Their player picks demonstrated that. True, they drafted some greats, but that wasn't consistent, and by the way the draft worked then, it may have been accidental. So, imagine my joy of moving to Lubbock in 2000 when Mike Leach first came here, and suddenly, Texas Tech produced high driving, fast-action football (much like UH's run-and-shoot). Winning was fun and exciting, and I began to really track the team (attending Tech helped too because I got an ID that got me into games). Leach left, but Kingsbury brought this kid named Patrick Mahomes to play and the rest for me is history.
As Lincoln noted with Grant when he took command of the US Army, "This one fights." (Lincoln's generals had been largely disappointing until that point, including McClellan, of whom Lincoln said, "Has the slows.") Most of the teams I had rooted for until that time "had the slows," with some exceptions. A championship still evaded me. With Mahomes, though, my sports' wandering was over (Houston still disappointing I might add). I found someone dedicated to winning, not mediocrity. Having worked in Kansas City over the years as a consultant gave me a level of appreciation for the city, so taking Mahomes and adding him to a team committed to winning sealed it.
That I was in Houston during the long years of wandering may have been what took me to study leadership and quality like I did. You can learn from antithesis (that means "the opposite of the standard" to those of you from deep East Texas), and I certainly had examples. These models helped me in my own leadership opportunities, so in many ways, to observe others leading helps us to learn about ourselves. I would also say being starved of greatness makes you appreciate it even more, and there is no denying Mahomes' greatness at this time.
What can we learn from Israel's wilderness years? What did Israel learn? We learn that God has a place for His people, but we need to listen to God and allow Him to shape us. We learn that to ignore God and to deny His will doesn't mean He talks even louder, but instead, He may allow us and our foolishness to dig us in even more deeply. We learn our wilderness wanderings, at times, clarifies our thinking. Jesus teaches us to withdraw in several passages. Upon learning of the death of John the Baptist, Christ, withdraws to "a desolate place by himself," clearly to be with His Father and to gather His thoughts (Matthew 14:13). We also see Christ allow himself to be taken to the wilderness for 40 days to be tempted by Satan and give us lessons on handling Satan's temptations by falling back to God's Word.
How is God shaping us in our lives on a daily basis? How do we respond to this shaping? We pray that we turn to God at times of shaping in our own personal wilderness journeys and that we use prayer and His Word to find answers.
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