Legendary UCLA men’s basketball coach John Wooden won an unprecedented 10 NCAA championships (7 of them consecutive), including one of the most amazing win streaks in all of sports: 38 straight NCAA tournament victories.
In addition, John Wooden was the only coach to compile four undefeated seasons of 30-0 and his teams captured 19 conference championships.
You might think that basketball was everything to Wooden. He once wrote, “I have always tried to make it clear that basketball is not the ultimate. It is of small importance in comparison to the total life we live. There is only one kind of life that truly wins, and that is the one that places faith in the hands of the Savior” (John Wooden, They Call Me Coach, McGraw-Hill, 2003).
One sports enthusiast who has a few John Wooden autographs told me that with each autograph Wooden would write a Bible verse – a different Bible verse each time.
Jesus was not a piece of the pie for John Wooden. He was everything to Wooden and to the apostle Paul, who himself wrote, “I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him” (Philippians 3:8-9).
Jesus Christ created everything. He gives you dominion over his created order.
Jesus Christ surrendered everything he had of his divine glory to humble himself and die for everything you ever did wrong.
Jesus Christ, risen from the dead and ascended into heaven, rules over everything and all of it must answer to him. You don’t need to be afraid of anything.
Jesus Christ is before everything, in everything, and after everything from A to Z. He delivers every rain drop, he designs weather patterns, and he delivers on every promise of God in your life – even if it means moving mountains.
Jesus Christ, who is everything, lives in you. Every breath. Every worry. Every moment. Every dream. He’s in it and making it a fit for God’s purposes and plans in your life.
PRAYER: Jesus, be my everything today. Come to my mind first before all my troubles and worries. Appear in my conversations as my favorite subject to talk about. Walk ahead of me to prepare the way through stress and storm. Open opportunities for me to make decisions filled with you, my life, my hope, my all. Amen.
FURTHER MEDITATION: Visualize for a moment a very still, quiet pond. You pick up a stone and throw it toward the middle of the pond, where it lands.
A small splash is followed by a circular ripple, and another, and another. They steadily proceed further and further out into the pond, one after another.
Soon the pond is filled with the ripple effect. All because of one stone. Jesus wants to be that stone in your life.
So instead of seeing Jesus as the most important in terms of a list of priorities, see him as the hub of everything, the influencer of everything, the stone creating a ripple effect.
Share this visual with a friend. Google a picture of it and print it, then keep it close this week.
