Year’s ago I got swept up into a craze called “Linsanity.” I’ve been an NBA fan on-and-off my whole life, and while the league had lost me for a while, I perked back up in 2012 when a young Taiwanese kid named Jeremy Lin came out of nowhere and began lighting it up.
In a game when they were behind and desperately needed to win, the New York Knicks gave their newly acquired guard a chance, and he rose to the occasion. He put up over 20 points and a bunch of assists and sparked the team to a win. From that point on, Linsanity grew as he continued performing exceptionally and leading the Knicks to victory after victory, even defeating the dominant Los Angeles Lakers and their superstar, Kobe Bryant.
It was a cinderalla story, and it was really fun to watch!…While it lasted.
It didn’t take long for Lin’s star to fade. He was let go by the Knicks and traded from team to team, season after season, in a career plagued by injuries and lack-luster performances.
Fast forward to the present. A few days ago Lin, an outspoken Christian, was sharing his testimony with a large group of Taiwanese believers, when he broke down in tears describing the impending end of His NBA run: "In English, there's a saying and it says once you've hit rock bottom the only way is up, but rock bottom seems to be getting more and more rock bottom for me…Free agency has been tough because I feel like, in some ways, the NBA has given up on me.”
To be honest, I was kind of ticked off when I heard it. Despite my affinity for the dude years ago, I found myself really annoyed with him. I muttered to myself, out loud, “Dude, are you serious? What do you know about rock bottom? Stop being such a cry baby. This is Linsanity.”
After all, the guy’s lived a charmed life. He graduated from Harvard. He’s played for years in the NBA, with the best ballers in the world, and has made somewhere between 50 and 100 million dollars. He’s a hero in the Chinese-Taiwanese sports world. He’s a Christian celebrity. And he’s got an NBA championship to boot, having spent last season with the winning Toronto Raptors. Yeah, cry me a river.
Mid-rant, I began reflecting on my recent study of the 10th commandment from Exodus 20:17: “You shall not covet your neighbor's house; you shall not covet your neighbor's wife or his male servant or his female servant or his ox or his donkey or anything that belongs to your neighbor."
At first—in usual human fashion—I applied the truths of my message to Jeremy: “Man, you are breaking this commandment; you are clearly jealous of the success of others; and underneath it all, you clearly have a huge problem with God. He has given you so much! Yet, it’s not enough for you. Don’t you realize how offensive your attitude must be to Him and how bad of a testimony it is to the watching world, filled with billions of people who will never see a tiny fraction of what you have? Come on, man!”
And then it hit me. Oh yeah, I’m just like this guy. I too am never satisfied with what God has given me. I too have a whole lot more than the vast majority of people in the world today—and than the vast majority of people who have ever lived. And, yet, it isn’t enough for me either. I too am jealous of others (Lin, for one). I too am addicted to proving myself and pleasing myself. Enough is never enough for me either. I too have a problem with God…and with wanting to be Him. And I too find myself robbed of contentment, peace, and joy as a result. I’m insane too.
When I judge Lin, I judge myself. It is the human condition. God could give us the whole world, and we’d still want more. It is another evidence of our rejection of Him and our dire need for Him, and another reminder of the greatness of the Gospel which tells us that He came for us, through the person and work of Jesus, to do for us what we could never do for ourselves, to live without coveting and to rescue us from our coveting.
Jesus never wanted other people’s stuff. He was always content with what His father had given Him. To play off the specifics of Exodus 20:17, He never owned a house, never had a wife, never had a male servant or a female servant or an ox or a donkey (aside from one he borrowed for a few hours) or anything else really. He lived virtually penniless. At one point He told his disciples, “Foxes have holes, the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to rest His head” (Matt 8:20).
And, yet, unlike us, He was perfectly content to live this way. He was grateful to receive from His Father and to give His life in loving service to others.
Not only did He not covet in His life, but He also subjected Himself to the worst of human coveting in His death, as the soldiers attending His execution jealously stole His only remaining clothes. They literally robbed God, and if we were there, we would’ve done the same.
It is insanity, and it is a problem from which we cannot rescue ourselves. We cannot stop ourselves from coveting. We are guilty of it constantly, in many ways which we don’t even realize. It is deadly to our souls in the here-and-now, and it deserves death in the end.
But, we have a Savior! Jesus is our rescuer and hope. He lived for covetous people, and He died for covetous people, to take our death and to give us His life. That is great news!
Another remark from Lin caught my attention: “My fear for my career has always been to not be the player that I know that I could be, and now I’m face-to-face with that, and I’m at a place where I have no choice but to be completely dependent upon God.”
I’m sure this feels miserable for Lin, to face his worst fear, and to realize his only option now is to look to God. It feels miserable to me when I am cornered this way. It feels like death…And, it is death…to the flesh. It’s the place where God meets us with His resurrecting grace. It’s where He makes the reality of the depth of our sin and the greatness of His Gospel real to us. It’s where He revives us in His Spirit.
Let us pray for Jeremy as we pray for ourselves, that God would help us see just how deep rooted our problem is, that we can’t solve it, but that He has—that He has been infinitely good to us through Christ. Though we may never feel that we have enough in this life, He has us, and that is what it means to have everything.
“I have learned to be content in whatever circumstances I am. I know how to get along with humble means, and I also know how to live in prosperity; in any and every circumstance I have learned the secret of being filled and going hungry, both of having abundance and suffering need. I can do all things through Him who strengthens me” (Phil 4:11-13).