One night over Christmas Break, I found myself captivated by someone I never expected to find common ground with: former Tennessee football player, NFL Hall of Famer & ordained minister, Reggie White.
No, I am not a massive man known for sacking the quarterback, but I saw a lot of myself in Reggie’s faith walk during the most recent installment of ESPN Films’ 30 for 30 series (this one, titled “The Minister of Defense”.)
I won’t summarize the entire thing here (it wouldn’t all be relevant and plus, this can influence you to go watch it for the full story,) but in case you need a primer, I’ll help you out.
Reggie White, a defensive giant from Chattanooga, played football at the University of Tennessee from 1980 to 1983. By the time he left college, he set Tennessee’s school record for 32 career sacks (later to be broken by Derek Barnett in the Music City Bowl in 2016. I was in attendance.) He was also the 1983 SEC Player of the Year, and received All-American status.
Reggie went on to play in the now defunct USL and later had a prolific career in the NFL, with long stints at both the Philadelphia Eagles and the Green Bay Packers. A 2006 Pro Hall-of- Famer, Reggie was obviously a dominant force on the field, but the football prowess wasn’t the thing I found most interesting about him.
At the age of 17, Reggie became an ordained minister. His love of God and determination to preach the gospel was evident during the documentary. There were tons of clips of him thanking God, praying with his teammates, AND preaching from the pulpit at churches across the United States.
If I’m being honest, the clips I initially saw of him put me off guard. There was something in him, while likeable, that felt… fake? The shiny, Christian facade of perfection that I find off-putting.
But, this is where things started to shift for me (well, and for Reggie.)
After years in the spotlight, both as a professional football player and leader in the faith community, Reggie’s status as a public figure started to cause him negative attention. The documentary shows this in detail, but one specific appearance at the Wisconsin State Legislature in 1998 caused him to re-evaluate his beliefs. He spoke on a number of things – but his comments on homosexuality and race ruffled many feathers and got him labelled as a Christian extremist.
Though not doubting his Christian faith, Reggie began to question how he’d been portraying it. How much of what he’d been preaching came from his own study of the word of God? How much of it was what others told him – things that he believed and regurgitated without researching for himself?
This line of questioning led him on a sabbatical of sorts. He travelled to Israel, learned Hebrew, and studied the original scriptures the way Jesus would’ve seen them. He wanted to study the Bible for himself – to see the Holy Land for himself. He wanted to interact with, pour over and study the history for himself. And, in his family’s words, this process allowed Reggie to think in ‘less black and white terms’. They described him as being a little more ‘grey’ in his thinking, not so certain that we could understand all things the way God does.
I saw a man, who was publicly touted as one of the biggest ‘godly’ men of his day, humbly admit that: hey, I am not doing this right. Something needs to change.
How known I felt by this evolution. How easily he expressed something I’ve been walking through and wrestling with for almost 15 years now.
I am a Christian. Faith has done a work in me, and I know that the darkest seasons of my life have been filled with hope because I believe in God. I believe in Him and believe that He is good. His grace has moved me to tears and his character surprises me the more I learn about him.
BUT – I say this with a comfort I have not always felt.
I was baptized when I was 11 years old, mainly out of guilt that I hadn’t done it yet. A Christian speaker came to my school and made some analogy about living like a shetland pony or living like a stallion. I don’t remember why being a shetland pony was bad, but I felt guilty that I hadn’t chosen to be a stallion yet, so I said I’d go ahead and get baptized. I think of my faith then and my faith now and am humbled at the transformation that has happened throughout the peaks and valleys of my life. I understand that God wasn’t upset that it took me time to develop a real relationship with Him – because honestly, my walk with Him hadn’t been the ‘traditional, southern, Bible belt’ way of ‘growing up Christian.’
I didn’t grow up in church, due mainly to the fact that I didn’t like going. I didn’t like YoungLife, I wasn’t a fan of Wednesday night youth groups, and Church felt like a box I had to tick to feel like a good person. I saw girls do Bible Studies on Wednesday mornings before school and felt like a poser. I saw groups of my friends go to D-NOW weekends and made excuses as to why I couldn’t go.
Was any of this because of God? No.
It was because of people – judgement as to why I wasn’t in Church every single Sunday. But also, not feeling welcome when I showed up to Youth Group and no one made an effort to welcome me. People who made faith look easy, making me feel like my questions and my novice level weren’t welcome in God’s house. As a perfectionist, I felt like my sub-par knowledge and experience, with a full-hearted desire to grow, wasn’t accepted or appreciated among Christians. (Not among Christ, but among Christians. Big difference.)
In the 14 years since my baptism, I recognize that grace and humility have done a lot of work in me – I recognize that earning your righteousness is the antithesis to Christian theology. I have found a church I love, and know what it’s like to have friends to genuinely walk with you and encourage you through the storms of life. I have felt comforted by a church building instead of intimidated. I have two Bibles (one is a cultural study Bible,) and notebooks filled with messages, prayers, and journal entries where I’ve learned about the character of God.(I enter into evidence: this blog, for example.) I understand why God wants us to walk in community – and I have a better understanding of what the right community looks like for me.
I give you this backstory to explain a bit more about my walk with God. I was not in a church building three days a week. I was not going to, or volunteering at, a VBS every summer. I did not feel comfortable hearing the words from another human and taking them as an accurate representation of truth.
Reggie faced this same dilemma, especially after the infamous 1998 legislative speech. It was a big catalyst for his desire to drop everything and go learn in the land Jesus traversed.
In a set of 2004 interviews, which were conducted only a few months before he died suddenly of cardiac arrhythmia, Reggie stressed that his biggest fear was that God would tell him he lead people astray during his time on Earth. He notes the times he said God was ‘speaking’ to him, telling him to change football teams or make big life decisions, were some of his biggest regrets.
“I never heard God’s voice”, Reggie says. And the transparency here was a breath of fresh air. Reggie’s sentiments were my own, projected to me on my parent’s 60-inch flat screen TV.
I left this film, for lack of a better word, convicted.
A few days later, I saw an invitation to participate in The Bible Recap. This campaign was spearheaded by a member of my favorite podcast team, and her invite was simple: follow this Instagram page for a community to hold you accountable if you want to read the Bible in 2024.
Had I previously planned on doing that? No. Have I often wondered why I don’t spend more time researching and studying the text of my faith – sitting in God’s presence and letting myself ask these questions and grow a deeper-rooted faith? Yes.
And so, on a slight whim, I decided to do it. And I have. Every day, not skipping a day since the year started.
The Bible Recap has readers work their way through the Bible chronologically. So far, I’ve read Genesis, Job, Exodus and Leviticus. I started Numbers this weekend (and if you’ve been with me since my Bible Book Club days, you might remember my initial recap attempts that didn’t make it past Deuteronomy. The Numbers one was very relevant though – sometimes my insight surprises me.)
Much like Reggie, there are current topics that really confuse me about the Bible. I don’t understand the culture of the Bible days. I struggle with fundamentalism – are some of these stories literal or allegorical? The rules of the oldest books are obviously a hot debate – but why did God decree them, and which of those laws are made irrelevant by the new covenant through Jesus?
So far, I’ve learned so much – about the culture of the world, the character of God, and ways that we can so easily misinterpret scripture.
Most importantly, I’m learning to be ok with the gray in between. The murky middle in between certainty and complete doubt. The reality is that by reading my cultural study Bible, with cultural context and historical anecdotes vetted by Bible scholars, there are a lot of question marks. And those question marks, rather than scaring me, are reminding me that I cannot, will not, know everything about creation. It is also an assurance that, ‘you know what? I may not know how this happened, how this is possible, or what this fully means – but God’s got it’.
I think I have more grace now that I recognize people are flawed, but God is not. And in understanding that we all err, and that God gave me a brain to think for myself, I’m a bit better equipped to know Him and discern His voice than I was a few months ago.
I don’t speak in Christian absolutes. There is so little that I know for certain. But, the one thing I do know is that the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and Moses was patient and caring and did big things through some EXTREMELY flawed people. How could my wrestling upset the God who wrestled with Jacob? How could my doubt upset the God who literally told Moses He would speak through him and Moses literally says ‘nah, I’m good – how about you use my brother?’
And even when all of that face to face with God seems too mystical and hard to imagine – I remember that God isn’t just parting seas and appearing in burning bushes. He’s also the God who brings peace, who sits with us in suffering, who delights in the details.
Even typing this, I feel like a bit of a poser. Who am I to explain God to you? To talk about Jesus, repentance, forgiveness, and love? I don’t feel qualified for that.
And I guess that’s what Reggie & Me have in common.
I hope that God smiles at the connection that two of His children, born in the same town but in two different times, share such a similar heart.
I would’ve disliked the overly zealous preaching from Reggie’s early days, because I live in a world of doubts and feeling like there isn’t a place for my quiet and obedient faith in a world of loud proclaimers. But deep down there has always been a fear just like Reggie’s – I don’t want to lead people astray when I feel like I know nothing.
But if I have learned anything, it’s that I can’t really lead people astray if I truly love God and follow His commandments. Why? Because I am flawed. I sin every day – if not through theft and taking His name in vain, then by coveting the life milestones I haven’t reached yet, not loving difficult people, fretting over praying in public.
But in knowing this, I know I need Him.
Every day I fall short of the grace of God, but He freely extends His hand to pick me up, dust me off, and urge me to try again. I don’t have to know all the answers. Hopefully, I can point people in the direction of the One who does.
And isn’t that kind of the whole point?
❤
all things alyson 