Since as long as I’ve been into football, I’ve been rooting for the Kansas City Chiefs. I had a knockoff Starter half-zip pullover jacket in elementary/middle school. I faithfully selected KC when playing Tecmo Super Bowl and ran all over people with Christian Okoye (the Nigerian Nightmare) and Marcus Allen. I had a custom fitted black hat made with red and yellow lettering of the Chiefs that I wore till it was rotten and I physically couldn’t fit it on my head anymore. I think that’s why my head is small now because this hat prevented full growth. I embraced the Snickers commercial when the endzone was painted and spelled the CHEFS instead of CHIEFS.
As big of a fan as I was, in latter years of my life, I have let my fandom slide. I still ALWAYS root for them and you better believe I was beyond stoked for them to take the Super Bowl 2 years ago. But if I’m honest I haven’t followed them near like I did in the past. I just don’t have time to keep up and invest the energy into being a fanatic.
And if I’m totally transparent about my history with the Chiefs, I don’t know them as well as a REAL fan should. I’m about to reveal something that is a little embarrassing if I call myself a fan. The Kansas City Chiefs were the original Texans, but in Dallas, not Houston. Owner Lamar Hunt started his team in the same spot as the infamous Cowboys and wanted to get in the NFL, but the league wouldn’t allow it. With that rejection and his realization that he couldn’t compete in the same town with the Dallas Cowboys, he moved to Kansas City and started the AFL (now AFC). I didn’t know that!
I imagine most people are not aware of that fact.
Now, I want to go back to Christian Okoye. His past told a different story than simply NFL legend.
Christian lived through the Nigerian Civil War as a child. He tells of gunfire and dead bodies and living as a refugee for over two years. He came from Nigeria, to America, to throw the discus and had a dream of being on the Nigerian Olympic team. In college at a small NAIA school in California, Okoye crushed the competition in field events winning 7 national titles. But he was denied a spot on the team and his Olympic dream was dashed.
So, in 1984, started football at the age of 23. In three short years, Okoye found himself drafted by the Chiefs in the 2nd round and made a name for himself in the league, running a 4.45 40 yd dash at 6’1” and weighing a damaging 260 lbs. His powerful legs and striking stature were no match for most defenders and many players found themselves being punished from head-to-head tackle attempts on the Nightmare from Nigeria or just avoiding him altogether.
But who would have thought? And who even knew? The little boy from the heart of Africa became a dominating threat in the world’s most powerful stage. This behemoth specimen with a thick African accent who instilled fear in opponents, came from a war-torn childhood living for survival.
Why do I tell you about the Chiefs, and Christian Okoye? Because it is OFTEN in the most unlikely places that God shows up, that God shows off, and that God shines.
In Acts 4, we read about two of the apostles and their experience with the High Council. They were arrested because of what they were teaching about their friend and savior Jesus. After healing a crippled man and then teaching the people, an onslaught of disturbed societal and religious leaders, accosted them, hoping to shut them up.
Peter responds to the antagonists, full of power and wisdom from the Holy Spirit, and tells them that Jesus is the key to eternal life. He explains that the healing came from and through Jesus for the crippled man.
The shocking part is the that the men doing the questioning were highly educated and specifically trained in scripture and leadership and yet Peter and John were obviously “ordinary men,” but it was clear that “they had been with Jesus” (ch4 v13).
They had NO RIGHT to be doing the things they were doing and leading the way they were leading based on their resume’. But God doesn’t care about credentials and is willing to bring world changing transformation to anyone willing to follow in the footsteps of Jesus.
Okoye could have let his past and his disappointments derail any future plans or success. Peter and John could have let their lack of training and social status prevent them from following God’s call. Instead, all of them chose to endure, chose to run the race, chose to embrace the faults and let it fuel their future.
I simply ask you, today, WILL YOU?
Brett
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