If I Could Be the Coolest

Who do you look up to?

When I was a kid I wanted to be like Mike… “If I could be like Mike…”

I remember I always wanted his shoes. For years my mom would never buy me the Jordan’s, and thankfully so, but one year I got those bad boys.

I remember I was talking about those shoes to the youth one night as we were talking about how things of this earth perish. I asked them if they knew where those Jordan’s were today? Someone said, “The dump!” to which I replied, “No… a glass case.” I kept a serious face for a moment before informing them that they were right.

I really wanted to be like Michael Jordan.

I just went up to Kentucky and had the privilege of hanging out with my buddy who coaches some 7th grade guys in basketball.

We got to the gym a little early, and he was asking me if I wanted to mess with the kids and tell them that I was a former NCAA basketball player.

When the guys arrived I was shooting around, and Coach Ben told them that I went to Texas Tech, which is true, and he never told them that I played basketball, but they jumped to that conclusion.

One of the kids immediately began to talk trash and yelled out that Texas Tech got lucky in one of its recent upsets.

I walked over to him, debating whether or not to engage in some trash talk with a 7th grader. I decided to hold back all the words I wanted to say in defense of my team, and I just said, “This is luck…” Then I threw the ball behind my head towards the goal from the three point line. To everyone’s surprise the ball hit perfectly in the square on the backboard and then swished through the net. I was shocked, but I kept a straight face.

The kids went crazy, and kept asking me to do it again. I was trying not to burst out laughing, and Coach Ben looked his team straight in the eyes, and came to my defense, “You don’t do that twice…”

Kids are always looking for someone to look up to. Hopefully it is their parents, or a quality role model. I would have loved for these 7th graders to look up to me, but what would be the good in that? I do not live there, and they would never see me. They might have a short lived impression that I am cool because of my lucky shot, but the person they are looking up to is Coach Ben. You can see it in the way they follow him as their coach, and he is a great Christian man for them to look up to.

In the same way that kids have people they aspire to be like, we should have people we aspire to be like.

It is important in the Christian faith that we have someone tangible to look to and model our lives after. Paul set this example to the churches he invested in, and we should strive to live our lives in such a way that we could say the same. Ultimately our goal is to be like Christ, so the hope is that the things we display, that we desire other people to model, are the qualities of Christ that are shining through in us.

Who are you aspiring to be like? And I am not talking about the Sunday school answer, “Jesus?” I am talking about someone that you can tangibly see living life, and model after them.

Another nugget to chew on is who is aspiring to be like you? Think about the people who look up to you and think about the way you live your life. Whether you realize it or not, someone is looking to be like you, so what kind of example are you setting?