In a previous post, I shared how past experiences of Jesus’ personal care and concern for me had pulled me through a terrible crisis of faith. Here I will share how one particular childhood event imprinted my heart with faith in Jesus. God demonstrated His love for me at the 1988 Thayer Booster Club Fifth Grade Free-Throw Contest.
Leading Up to the Free-Throw Contest: Awkward and Bullied
In the early part of 1988, I was an awkward and annoying eleven-year old boy. I attended this school.
I was a chubby kid who had already chosen to become a religious zealot. Plus, I had something of a martyr-complex that I lovingly nurtured. My Bible was situated proudly on the corner of my desk at school. And I was the self-designated guardian of my classmates’ souls. So, if I thought they were doing something to put themselves in danger of the fires of hell, I let them know about it with pompous self-importance.
They despised me.
And the more despicable I became, the more my martyr-complex blossomed, and the more they despised me.
There were other reasons. I was one of the only children in my class to come from a farm out of town. Also, the eighties were difficult for farmers, so my lower economic status was an obvious target. Moreover, I was not athletic, but bookish and fat, and I did not keep up with the products of popular culture that they were all consuming. I also had weird rituals that I used as coping mechanisms.
But the Bible on the corner of my desk was an unmistakable target.
Bully 1 and Bully 2
There were two classmates (henceforth designated Bully 1 and Bully 2) who could be especially cruel, and who served as ringleaders for the rest of the classroom. In pop culture bullies are usually depicted as social outcasts. This was not the case in my class. My nemeses were the most popular kids in my class. Everyone else fawned over them and basked in whatever positive attention they might shine their direction.
Bully 1 and Bully 2 were, among other things, especially good at sports, especially basketball. They played basketball with each other every afternoon, and often during recess. They were also funny, especially when it came to thinking up a cutting put-down. And I was usually the one on the receiving end for those. For some reason, an aptly timed Bible verse failed to land with as much finesse!
Today I recognize that I was largely responsible for the bullying that I suffered. But at the time, I was simply overwhelmed by the injustice and outrage that I suffered from day to day.
The Announcement of the Free-Throw Contest
On one particularly bad day my classmates had played “Matthew-germs” all through recess. (This was a kind of game of tag based on the premise that someone had accidentally touched me and thus been infected.) This was not so odd, to tell you the truth, but it really hurt on this day. The teasing continued as we made our way into the classroom, because to go back into the building we had to line up. My classmates fought with each other over who had to stand next to me. They didn’t want Matthew-germs. Finally, we got back to our desks, and there was a bit of respite from the bullying. Before we started the next lesson, my teacher told us we had a special guest.
My youth minister, Jeff Davis, stepped into our classroom. He was carrying a box. Jeff put it on the teacher’s desk, and passed out flyers, the kind with the original clip-art that you did with a photocopying machine. He wanted us to know about an upcoming basketball tournament and free-throw contest that the Thayer Booster Club was sponsoring. He opened the box, and pulled out a trophy. To entice us to sign up, he had gotten real trophies!
Winning the Free-Throw Contest an Impossibility
Before he left, he made eye contact with me and nodded. I knew that he was encouraging me to sign up. Jeff had enthusiastically supported my Bible-to-school habit. He was impressed with how well I knew the Scriptures. He invested a lot of time in me, routinely inviting me to help with things at church or the local church camp. The first time that I ever got up in a pulpit was because of his prompting. Sometimes he asked me to write something for the church newsletter. Now he wanted me to represent Thayer Christian Church in the free-throw contest. He didn’t have to spell it out.
Unfortunately, I was terrible at basketball. Living in the country, I had very little opportunity to play with anyone. And I would have much preferred to sit down with a book than to go to the shed and shoot hoops into the basket my father had set up for me. I knew that winning that trophy was impossible.
My classmates knew it, as well. As Jeff walked out of the room, the ones who had desks around Bully 1 and Bully 2 high-fived them. We all knew that one of them would get the first place trophy, and the other would get the second place trophy.
The Prayer
On the bus-ride home, I began, for the first time ever in my life, to pray in a frank manner. I told God exactly how I felt. The conversation went something like this: “God, I’ve been doing all kinds of things for the sake of your name. I bring my Bible to school every day and try really hard not to sin. When I see my classmates sinning, I warn them of Your approaching judgement. I obey my parents. I take care of my sisters. And so far, I don’t see how this has gotten me one single thing. In fact, about the only thing that it has ever done for me is give my classmates something else to make fun of me for.”
“God, some days I wonder if You even exist. I read in Your Bible about all of these miraculous signs of Your care and concern for the children of Israel. But I’ve never seen anything like that in my own life. Sometimes I wonder if it’s not just all made up.”
I got off the bus, ran up the hill to my house, and ran downstairs to my room. I picked up my basketball. And then I offered God a challenge. “God, if you love me, I want you to prove it.” With tears streaming down my face, I prayed, “God, if you really love me, make me win that free-throw contest.”
And then, for a week, I didn’t think about it.
The Basketball Tournament
But then, on that horrible, gray, Sunday afternoon in the middle of winter, the hour of reckoning arrived. I was sick to my stomach. But I had signed up. There was no getting out of it. I was silent as my parents drove me to the gym.
My team got demolished in the basketball tournament. I had never played in an actual basketball game. Neither had anyone else on my team. The referee was quickly exasperated with us for walking with the ball and throwing it out of bounds. The only thing that I really remember is throwing the ball to the one classmate who was kind of like a friend to me in those days, another farm-kid like me. As soon as he saw the ball hurling towards him through the air, he threw his arms around his head and turned his back to it. So the ball bounced off of his back into the waiting arms of Bully 2. He passed it to Bully 1 for an easy lay-up.
The Basketball Tournament: The Aftermath
After the game, I heard the father of my friend screaming at him in the hallway. My own father just hung his head in shame, and could barely even look at me. It is hard to describe just how important local athletics were for small-town farming communities like mine in the eighties. A few years earlier, our high school basketball team had taken the 1A state championship. Thayer took basketball seriously. Our losing team could taste the searing disappointment.
But there was no time to wallow in our defeat. The free-throw contest would soon be underway.
The Free-Throw Contest
When the dreaded hour came, I took my place at the end of the line. I was not excited about participating in this contest. I remembered my prayer. But it all seemed so foolish and vain right now. Why should God be concerned about a fifth-grade free-throw contest in Thayer, Kansas?
In the first round, about half of my classmates fell out, and took a seat at the side of the gym. Bullies 1 and 2 nailed their shots, as expected. All too soon, it was time for me to take my own shot. Better to just get it over with, and wither under my father’s disapproval on the way home. But, once again, I remembered the prayer. And so, I did something really odd. If God was going to give me this victory to prove His love for me, I wanted it to be indisputable. So I closed my eyes.
I did not open them until I heard the “swoosh,” and then, to my deep surprise, cheering from the bleachers. Beyond all hope and expectation, I had made my first shot! With my eyes closed!
There is not much more to relate. The next two or three rounds eliminated almost all of my classmates. Each time, my shot hit home. Soon, it was just the two Bullies and me left to duke it out.
The Free-Throw Contest: Victory
Mainly, I remember two things about the conclusion of the contest. First, I remember that it took several more nerve-wracking rounds. My accuracy was astonishing. Second, I remember how thrilled I was when it was just Bully 1 and me left to compete for the gold trophy. I was honestly delighted at the thought that I would get a silver trophy at the very least. And had that happened, I probably would have still been convinced that it was a miracle.
Come to think of it, I do remember a few other things. I remember how excited the crowd was getting. People began to cheer for me by name. For someone who had resigned himself to being a “loser” for the rest of his days, this was remarkable … and weird. I didn’t exactly like it. Bully 2 also began crying when he missed his shot. I have to confess, I did like that quite a bit.
In a few more rounds, it was over. I was victorious. The crowd rushed the court. I got a shiny trophy. And then, I was given an opportunity to share the story of God’s love for me.
The Free-Throw Contest Miracle: Concrete Evidence of God’s Love for Me
There are many, many things about God and His dealings with us that I will never understand. I don’t know why He let’s bad things happen to good people. I’m not at all sure why I’ve received so many precious graces that I know have been denied others. And even in my own day to day life, I have plenty of experiences that cause me to pause and doubt God’s goodness, and even His existence. But there is no denying that in 1988, a strange, overweight kid put God to the test, and instead of smiting the son-of-a-gun right then and there for his overweening gall, God gave this little kid what he really needed, a miracle. He helped me win a free-throw contest.
On bad, bad days, I look at this free-throw contest trophy, and I remember God’s faithfulness to me as a child. And I know I can trust Him to remain faithful to the end of my adult-hood, as well.
Epilogue
The next year, I made myself sick with anxiety before that year’s free-throw contest. My farm-kid friend who got hit in the back with the basketball won that year. Bully 1 had to settle for a silver trophy again. Bully 2 still doesn’t have one.