I am totally stoked that the NBA relocation committee has voted to keep the Kings basketball team in Sacramento!  The committee’s decision goes a long way to sealing the deal when NBA owners cast their final vote on the matter in a couple of weeks.  Looking good, Kings!

But I gotta be honest, I couldn’t have cared less about the King’s fate a few months ago, and I gotta admit that my enthusiasm now extends way beyond the team and the community that would suffer if they were to leave the area.  It has to do with the battle itself to keep the Kings here, fought with exceptional courage and stamina by Sacramento mayor Kevin Johnson and his team.

Why the intrigue?  Because this hard-won victory carries with it a hard core life lesson—life is sometimes a battle, and we need to stay in the fight to the very end if we want to see the victory we so earnestly desire.  We can’t give up…we can’t give in.  We can’t lie down…we can’t roll over.  We can’t step back, sit down, play dead, or BE dead.  Life demands ALL of our energy for triumphant success to occur.

Here are some situations in which Kevin Johnson-style courage could help us to prevail in our everyday lives:

• courage to continue praying when a son or daughter has taken a wrong turn
• courage to keep knocking on doors when the job search is wearing you down
• courage to prayerfully claim a soul for Christ, when the person seems a long ways off
• courage when facing the death of a loved one
• courage when facing your own illness when there doesn’t seem to be answers
• courage when our nation seems to be “going to hell in a handbasket”
• courage when the income doesn’t meet the bills
• courage when losing a home
• courage in the loss of a pregnancy
• courage when getting an education seems like an impossible dream
• Courage when a relationship ends
• courage when our world seems to be running amuck

• courage, most of all, to take God at His word…and trust in His promises even and especially when the future looks bleak.

I know, it’s hard.  Courage takes practice in the little things, so that when the big events in life come along, courage comes more easily.  There’s no better time than now to practice courage.

(And just in case anyone is interested…I’m now a Kings fan!)

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