Boxing is an intricate yet simple sport. You don’t need any crazy gear or flashy clothes. You don’t need any prerequisites or athletic background. You don’t even need teammates or a coach. All you need is 2 people, a pair a boxing gloves and the heart of a lion.
You see boxing is simple in this manner, but its also intricate. The bigger/stronger person doesn’t always win. Being too aggressive and offensive usually leads to more trouble then help. And you need as much mental endurance as physical endurance. Boxing requires a strategy, a plan. You need to have technique to know when to throw a punch and to defend a punch. You need to be 2 moves ahead of your opponent, knowing what punches he’ll throw and how to counter it.
Knowing these things to be true, I am certainly not a boxer. I am tall and skinny, boxers are usually short at stout. I am pretty passive, boxers love violence. I hate getting hit, to boxers feeling the pain of a hit makes them feel the most alive. But through boxing ministry in Guatemala, God has taught me some life lessons and he has had a funny way of making me a boxer in my own way.
I can remember on the first day at boxing ministry our instructor (and also my teammate Elijah) said “Don’t be afraid to get hit, make pain your friend.” And for someone who is afraid to get hit, and hates pain I thought this was horrible advice. But It wasn’t till I met Samuel that I truly realized what Elijah met.
I’ll never forget during the second class I watched this local kid named Samuel box. He’s about my build, and the first thing he does is want to box the biggest, strongest, scariest guy in class; Our instructor and my teammate Elijah. The match started and it pretty much went how you would expect, he got demolished and took hit after hit and it ended with him getting a very bloody nose. It would’ve been very easy for him to want to quit, and no one would’ve shamed him for it. Here he was defeated, had a bloody nose and fresh off a beating. But instead he did the exact opposite, he cleans up his wounds, gets up and wants to fight the second biggest, strongest, and scariest guy in the class. And this fight got even bloodier, then the first. And ended up with Samuel on the floor with another bloody nose and more head beating then anyone I’ve ever seen. I felt so bad for him, but I’ll never forget what he said at the end of class: “I may have gotten two bloody noses and gotten beaten up, but I am going home with a smile.” I remember hearing this guys story of his mother recently passing away and now living with his brother who beats him up regularly and thinking “this guy is crazy, here he is in the midst of so much adversity, who keeps getting beat up yet he smiles through all the pain.” You see Samuel knew something that I didn’t that night. That when you are fighting for your life, you’ll get beat up pretty bad, but people won’t remember you for your falls, they’ll remember you for how you respond. For how you face your fears. How you stand up against superior opponents even when you’re outmatched. How you don’t sit around and lick your wounds, instead you get up and ask for more. And at the end you are able to go home with a smile, even in the midst of defeat because you know you gave your all.
And I think in our spiritual lives, the same stands true. That God doesn’t keep count of how many times we get knocked out, beat up, or receive a “bloody nose.” He doesn’t care that we fall, stumble and don’t reach our fullest potential. Instead he cares of how many times we fight back with the heart of lion, knowing that His perfect grace and love covers all. That in the spiritual realm of boxing its a battle and usually its easy to want to quit after the first “bloody nose,” but we are able to stand up and keep fighting with the knowledge that our Heavenly Father gives us an armor of protection. So we don’t have to punch aimlessly as one punching the air. We don’t get hit and wallow in defeat. And we certainly don’t stay on the ground when we get beat up. Because when we are fighting for our lives, we have purpose with every movement and punch. And at the end of the day when we have a couple wounds, we can go home with a smile, because we know that we are going back to our Fathers house who will lavish us with his glory.
So I think we are all in our own ways a boxer. There is always something in our lives we are fighting against. But as believers and followers of christ we have the assurance that we can smile through all pain because He who sees our present sufferings is with us. So who can stand against?
Romans 8:18 “For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.”
