I knew today was coming, but I tried to keep the mental images of what I thought would happen at bay for a while. Well, today I found out how it would go.

For several weeks now, I and two friends from my church small group have talked about getting together to play basketball after church some afternoon. The big picture idea was to make a ministry out of it- to use some hoops time to let people from our church connect better on the court, and to let people on the court know about our church. Well, we needed to just pick a Sunday and go play together after church, I and my two friends decided. That selected day was today, and we came into the weekend ready to ball a little.

My concern, though, lay in the fact that one of my two friends is a pretty decent basketball player. Well, not just a decent player. A very good player. A college level player. A 23 year-old, Ohio-raised, jab-step-and-pull-back-and-pop-it-or-burn-you-driving Harlem-Globetrotter-of-a-ball-handler Johnson-Gym-rat king of player. A bit of a phenom player. A much-better-than-I-am player.

I knew this because earlier in the year, after we had met, he let me know he was playing on a city league team, and invited me to come watch one of their games. I arrived for the second half of one of his games one day, just to watch him bomb threes and no-look drive-and-pass on the opposing team. The other team was good. And so was his. The other team won that day, but I got to see Kyle show some of his stuff. “That kid is good.”

So fast-forward a few months, and April begins with warm and sunny weekend afternoons- the kind of afternoons that awesome for playing basketball. And so we picked a date, and we had decided we’d meet after church today and see how things went.

After church, we wandered over to the outdoor court on the Highland High School campus, and after some friendly banter and warm-up shooting, Kyle suggested we play 21, since there were only three of us. “Sure,” I and my friend Tim said. The rules were reviewed, Kyle chucked up a half-court heave to break the game, and then it began.

I felt pretty energetic for the first three or so possessions. I ended up with the ball, dribbled out to the top of the key, and threw up a poor perimeter shot. The ball came off the rim, Kyle grabbed the rebound, and then the Kyle domination began. Tim and I stacked up our D so that Tim took him first up top. Kyle blew by Tim with a crossover step that left Tim spinning. Driving the lane, Kyle backed in to me and then effortlessly pivoted around me for an easy lay-up.

And then the timer started inside of me.

Occasionally Tim and I grabbed a rebound here and there and tried our best to drive and/or get a shot up. Inevitably, whatever we threw up clanked off the rim or backboard, and Kyle cleared it, set up up top on one of us, and the just schooled us. Pullback threes, crossover cuts, between-our-leg dribbles as he broke to the basket, firm elbows to the back in defense. Solid play from every angle. Rarely missed shots. No mercy.

After a short while, Tim’s allergies gave him a headache from running, so he sat down, and I was left trying my best to salvage my self-image as a baller, trying to make the game some sort of competition. After 5 quick possessions though, I was already winded and physically drained. My feet felt like lead. I found my way to the basket a number of times on Kyle by backing in, but every short shot or layup I tossed up at the rim missed, rolling off because my shot was too hard or too flat or too soft. And I continued to hear the timer ticking.

I found myself feeling at first angry, and then more increasingly, frustrated as Kyle blew past me over and over, or hit an easy outside shot, seemingly without breaking a sweat, until Kyle won the first game handily, and we took a break. By that time, as we headed off the court and I quietly laid down under the branches of a bush for some shade, the machinery was grinding inside, and all of the alarms from my athletic past were going off.

I’ve always wanted to be a decent basketball player, and for a number of years when I was a teenager, I think I was viewed as one. I was tall for my age, and I had pretty good energy, so at least I was active on a court. I enjoyed playing in pick up games, particularly when there were really no stakes on the line. I had that height advantage, and people just assumed I was good.

The truth is, I was really just okay as a ballplayer. And I look back now and recognize that I was pretty much just okay then because, as when faced with other competitive situations during other times in my life, I expected to fail and I stumbled mentally. The timer would always start inside of me, and I simply believed I was going to be beat. I expected that I would lose. I expected that I did not really have what it took to win. And certainly, going into any situation thinking this way is not good. But somewhere in my life, I adopted the timer mentality. I failed to find the fight in myself to push through physical challenges- particularly if they involved meeting someone else in head-to-head play.

I failed to develop toughness.

It’s funny where a lifetime of such thinking can take you.

—

Somewhere along the way in those teenage years, that emerging voice in my head that told me “You are not tough enough” became more vocal, adding a message in my mind that, because I was not tough enough, I was also not good enough.

An again, in time, in a devilish twist of perverted thinking, the inner voice matured that capability message into a lovability message.

“Because you are not tough enough, you are not good enough.”

“Because you are not good enough, you are not worth loving.”

Hence, the power of the timer.

—

This afternoon, my inability to stop a 24 year-old college guard from chewing me and my game up sent me swimming back through my deep feelings of failure in the past.

And I almost took the bait.

I almost let it take me to the lovability conclusion: “You can’t hang with this kid. You aren’t tough. You are weak… This is why no one really likes you… This is why no woman will ever love you…”

I laid on my concrete gurney for a while silent, letting Tim and Kyle talk as I stewed over my skills. And as I thought about quitting, pity pouring in on my soul like I’ve let it in the past, I heard a different quiet voice break through the darkness within.

“You are tough if you just play him again. It’s not about winning or losing here. It’s just about being in the game.”

Kyle and Tim continued to small talk as I laid there until a cool breeze blew over us and they stalled.

In a moment, I sat up, and took a deep breath.

I know he’s gonna clean my clock. Humiliate me.

Oh well. It’s not about what he does to me. It’s about what I do here. Or don’t do.

“Okay, Kyle, let’s go again.”

“Oh, are you up for one more?”

“Yeah. I may not stop you, but I’m gonna slow you down.”

“Bring it, brother!”

Kyle came out playing his A-game again, and I was behind quickly. But I was in the game, and we were playing. And I was trying.

And the timer stopped.