When Conor McGregor fought Nate Diaz the first time, he had an amazing first round. He was moving well, countering and controlling the fight. Diaz was bloody and battered going into the second. Then, when McGregor gassed, Diaz threw a one-two that rocked McGregor. He stumbled backward, and then inexplicably he shot for a takedown. Nate Diaz is a blackbelt in Gracie Jiu Jitsu. Diaz would stuff the takedown, get the mount, land strikes until McGregor gave up his back/neck, and Diaz would sink in the rear naked choke.
McGregor is a world-class striker with knockout power and sniper like precision in his shots. He has total control of his body and his frame and is one of the most lethal knockout punchers in the lightweight division. He is by no means a grappler on the level of Diaz. He got rocked. He got hurt. He got nervous, and that led to fear. Fear led to him trying to grab onto something, and thus the takedown attempt.
Fear is a suffocating lie.
That can carry many meanings. Fear is smothering, toxic, and crippling. Fear can stop us dead in our tracks from amazing things. What fear does; plays on our insecurities, our thoughts, and our dark places. Fear uses the worst truths about our lives, spins it, and turns them into lies of shame. Shame that is so toxic is paralyzes us from the heart down.
And none of it is true.
There are true things about me. I have a testimony filled with dark places and pitfalls. I have failed miserably, hurt people and myself. I’ve wrecked relationships, friendships, and ruined my heart.
You will always be the same
You will always fight just to run
You’ll just do the same thing again
Stay in your box, boy.
No matter how deep a lie cuts, no matter how deep it sends the poison into our veins; we always have access to the one thing that a lie truly hates. Lies hate hope. Yes, a truth is the opposite of a lie, but allow me to explain. Lies will always hate hope the most. Because hope means better, hope means a way out and forward. And a lie wants to own you. A lie wants you to live in the despair of the moment and root yourself in the failure of the past. And because of that, lies take hope and twist them. They turn what should be good into something that you end up hating yourself. Hope can be crippling. Truth is liberating. Love is redeeming.
There are some truths about me that I can engage in. I can engage with the truths of my past with hope for the future. I can tell the truth about myself, and about what I love. I can choose to leave fear behind. I can choose belief and love and hope. I can choose to wait, and to be patient for what I love. And I can believe in love in the moment. That I am put here for a purpose. That I am always changing, constant in the Lord. I am here to not run away, but to stand firm in my faith, I will always fight my demons, but I will not give them an inch. I will happily grapple with them till my last breathe. God is good, I am loved. That is a box I’ll engage in any day.
Conor McGregor would fight Diaz again, this time taking the decision win in a five-round war. Fear doesn’t last. It just lies, fighting to hold on to its last breath.
