May 14, 2012 - Practice Being A Good Teammate

The last two days have brought me great reminders of a Biblical mandate: “in honor giving preference to one another.” (Romans 12:10)

One of the reminders came as I was watching a commentator discussing the political arena. The discussion involved who should get the credit in some different areas of national decision making. The commentator wisely stated that “failure has no father but success has many.” In other words no one wants to take credit for the bad but everyone wants credit for the good. Obviously in an election year we will hear a lot of this…

The other place I was reminded of this idea was while watching the Miami Heat / Indiana Pacers game. The commentators there were discussing the fact that all-star Dwayne Wade had recently stated that LeBron James is now the “leader” of the Heat. It was interesting because Dwayne is known as a star and has for many years been considered the Heat’s “leader.” Yet here is a star stating that he is willing to take a secondary role for the good of the team.

Here is his exact quote from an Associated Press article: “Obviously, last year we kind of got cheated a little bit out of the greatness of LeBron as a vocal leader,” Wade said. “He had so much going on, so much in his mind that he was just trying to show everybody with his play and his toughness. But this year, especially of late, we’ve all been getting the vocal player, the intelligent player that LeBron is. His IQ of the game is second to none. So you listen. Especially me.” 

That brings us back to Romans 12. That happens to be where the our family is at this weekend in our before school devotions. As I read Romans 12:10 this morning it jumped off the page as I thought of the other things I had been hearing this weekend.

The picture given from the Dwayne/LeBron discussion gives us a clear description. The question is not who is the most gifted, especially since we all have different gifts. The question is whether or not we are willing to defer and give preference to another? (I also thought of the command in Philippians 2:3 to consider others as more important than ourselves.)

I often read the passages in the morning from The Message Bible also just to give a different flavor to things… The quote from Romans 12:10 reads this way: “ practice playing second fiddle.”