Underdog stories are upside down

We are well into April and the NCAA mens basketball championship tournament, March Madness has come and gone. I loved the tournament because it is a time when underdogs come out from under the hardwood to do their thing; that being, upset a nationally ranked team and surprise all the basketball pundits. 

When this happens, an infectious celebration usually breaks out in the locker room of the underdog. See this celebration by the Stephen F. Austin team after they upset VCU. 

Jesus is always at the center of underdog stories in the Scripture. In the book of John,  chapter, 5 a story is told...here it is....


Soon another Feast came around and Jesus was back in Jerusalem. Near the Sheep Gate in Jerusalem there was a pool, in Hebrew called Bethesda, with five alcoves. Hundreds of sick people—blind, crippled, paralyzed—were in these alcoves. One man had been an invalid there for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him stretched out by the pool and knew how long he had been there, he said, “Do you want to get well?” The sick man said, “Sir, when the water is stirred, I don’t have anybody to put me in the pool. By the time I get there, somebody else is already in.” Jesus said, “Get up, take your bedroll, start walking.” The man was healed on the spot. He picked up his bedroll and walked off.


This man, the text tells us, "had been an invalid there for thirty-eight years." Imagine being passed over by thousands of people during the course of thirty-eight years. Many many people with illnesses and various afflictions came to this pool for its healing properties. I think this guy might have been the underdog of all time, don't you?

In Christian marriage, Jesus walks with us throughout the ups and downs of unloving and loviing times in our relationship. He will not pass over us. He delights in us even on our worst day. He wants to heal us and will use our spouses to reveal the areas of our hearts he wants to make whole again. We must choose Him and this means walking in humility...taking up the role of underdog. Will you trust Him to do that work in your marriage? It begins with realizing that he is crazy about you, and then receiving His love today. 


This is the Resurrection Day story in a nutshell. Healing and wholeness is offered to all, especially the underdogs. We all feel like underdogs at times in marriage and sometimes we put on a facade so that no one will know what is really going on inside the rooms in our hearts. By pressing on with Him, trusting in the truth that He loves us when the worst about us leaks out, we can tell of His victory in our underdog story.