CBC Tuesday Night Basketball

Originally posted on Facebook ... But for the sake of this being a collection of my college years, I'll post here too.

Add this to my confusing pile of extremely wordy thoughts about my journey with this game called basketball and how God's sanctified and is sanctifying me through it despite a past I'd rather forget. Preface ... If you're not a fan of basketball specificallyor sports, not sure if you'll be able to relate and you may think by the end of this "dang dawg, you need counseling fool. Find a new hobby." But for anyone who's ever had a real zeal for any hobby, it's not too far a stretch from other common hobbies. But anyway, this is more for those who love God's gift of basketball like I do. Preface aside ...

I just got back from playing basketball at my church tonight (If you wanna come ... lemme know on my wall or something ... haha, don't let this post scare you from coming. It is indeed pretty fun and if nothing else you can trash talk to Mark Choi and laugh at Devin ... I do anyway). Well anyway ... Tonight is your typical night of Tuesday night basketball at CBC. It has scared off a number of people because of the aggressiveness that happens there as well as other things this post will get to ... Let's just say it's not "after-church ball." The people are different, the environment and tone is different and people don't smile as much ... haha. Sometimes there's altercations which are handled ... But anyway, as one of the youngest guys there, today I saw 20-40 year olds, grown men some even related, bicker, throw deliberate elbows, and perform takedowns all in effort to put a ball in a basket all as if to scream "I'M BETTER THAN YOU. I'M MORE POWERFUL." I don't normally use metaphors like the one I'm about to use but it was very king of the hill with one lion trying to show that his roar is more fear-instilling, while another lion trying to prove who's really more powerful. Some of these guys almost like beat their chest to show they're more than ready to mix it up and show who's more of a "man." In those moments my mind goes something like this ... "GROW SOME BALLS! You're older than me and here you are yelling at your nephew over a game that none of us are really any good at!" (the score was like freakin 1-2 after 15 minutes or so). Anyway, by grace nothing gets out of hand and as the man left the gym I see on his face that look that I know all so freakin well.

My history at Tuesday night basketball at Chinese Baptist Church has not been ... well a good one. My track record would depict a total pompous young kid who thought he was better than everyone. Thing is, while I was still in high school, there'd be countless nights where I'd leave that building I'd pretty much call my home with that same exact expression as that man, with that intense "I want to punch something/someone" rage. And as I would get in the car, I would not be able to take any kind of worship music being played. I'd turn it down and drive home quiet. And in those drives home there would well inside me a real angsty rage for not being able to attain something ... something I'd been reaching and working my *expletive* (lol) off for, something i'd dedicated, something i'd earned and yet I would always somehow fall short and hit some kind of ceiling. I was just so effing pissed that I could never find satisfaction in this sport that I'd grown up loving. I hated it and like a drug I would keep going back to it every tuesday, every wednesday, every sunday, every chance I could. Guess you could say basketball was my crack and like any other addiction ... No matter how much everything in your body and soul cries that it's killing you, you continue to drink the poison. The most vivid feeling I remember of those days was that walk back to my car and feeling a ridiculously weighty feeling of total emptiness. Like just sheer nothingness. I absolutely hated that feeling. I never wanted to feel that again and every tuesday it would come back ... The rage would turn to angst and the angst might have even turned to tears as the conclusion would set in that on that court Jon Lau was becoming exactly who for so long he was afraid of becoming ... an angst-y kid who never grew into a man, having not recovered from the fact that he was not getting what he felt he was owed. I deserved to be the hotshot, best player there and everywhere I went. I put the work in. I loved it more. I knew it more. I studied it more. These fools don't know it like I do. They think it's just about and1 mixtape crap or using the sport for something else. And you have absolutely no handle anyway! You freakin carry the ball every time you fake! (okay I'm just being honest with where my heart's at). In the end, I immensely struggled with questioning why I wasn't good enough to have made a high school team when I'm watching people on the football team with no knowledge, skill or love for the game log starter's minutes. I'd tear these guys up in PE haha so what the freak gives? I felt like it was owed me and I was pissed that no matter how much I practiced and proved to myself and my peers that I could play, I wasn't good enough. I was pissed that God would continually not allow me to make some form of team y'know? And with every affirmation from friends and peers and the question "are you on the basketball team? oh, really? why not?" I would subtly get more and more angry. At this point I'm not sure if this can relate to the background of that man that left the gym the way I would always leave but I don't think it's too far of a stretch.

and I'm thinking ... Even though everything in me wants to scold that man who's probably more than twice my age to "GROW UP! You're supposed to be teaching us," the more I see that it's not so thin of line to see Jon Lau as the exact same person. I have been for more than a decade ... and still struggle a lot with some kind of craving to be this to attain that as if to prove something to everybody, or maybe even myself. And as I left that same familiar building tonight, something (Let's just say the 3rd person of the Trinity naw mean?) preached to me: "If not for Jesus, you are that man Jon. If not for God's patience on your evil, stubborn, idolatrous heart you are him."

I'm about to turn 21 (woohoo ...) and this guy I'm describing is probably in his forties (and dang he's pretty freakin built for his age haha). But this is where it gets hard ... It's like I hear someone yelling in my ear "Do you think I've aligned all the circumstances of on Tuesday nights, having those particular guys and their own baggage in that same particular gym you went to every Sunday for 20 years just for you to get a couple of buckets and feel good about yourself? Grow some balls Jon. You will never be good enough. That's the whole point of the cross! Grow up."

The thing about the cross of Jesus Christ is that it leaves absolutely no room to boast and absolutely no room to pity yourself. More than anything it creates ... It pushes and pulls. It sanctifies. What a truth that hurts: If not for Jesus, you are that man Jon. Despite the fact that this guy has unjustly rustled your own feathers and offended your own brother and friends for no reason, love him. Talk to him. Pray for your "enemy" and his salvation. These kinda guys are not outside of the flock.

"In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins" (1 John 4:10).

I don't even know this guy's name. I think he might have the same last name as me though haha. But if you stumble upon this, especially you ballers, please pray for God to bring guys like this to our gyms and pray for God to show them the beauty of His own perfection. There are countless men all over the areas God's placed us who are no different than him and if not for grace we are these guys. God, for the sake of Your name, save.