Lux Lucet

And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to [His] purpose.  – Romans 8:28

“Pitt fires Haywood day after his arrest,” shouted the headline in the Cincinnati Enquirer.  This was a reference to former Miami University (Ohio) head football coach Mike Haywood, who just three weeks ago was on top of the world.  Haywood, after coaching Miami to a Mid-American Conference football championship and a bowl berth, left the school to take a higher profile position in the Big East Conference as coach at the University of Pittsburgh.  The story continued,

Football coach Mike Haywood on Saturday was fired by the University of Pittsburgh, which said he couldn’t continue in a job he held just 2 1/2 weeks because of his arrest on a domestic violence charge. 

Haywood was released Saturday from St. Joseph County Jail in Indiana on $1,000 cash bond, said an officer at the jail who declined to giver her name, after the charge was upgraded from a misdemeanor to felony domestic battery in the presence of a minor.

My point in citing this story is not to beat up on Mike Haywood.  I don’t know much about him, and I have only a limited understanding of the events surrounding the alleged domestic violence incident that resulted in his arrest and firing.  It appears that a sexual sin may have played a role in this turn of events, since his arrest came, “Friday after a custody issue developed with a woman with whom he has a child,” but the story doesn’t elaborate.  Haywood may be guilty as charged.  He may be innocent.  But while there’s much I don’t know about his situation, what I can say for sure is that Mike Haywood has suffered a devastating personal setback.  He’s gone from football championship, to big-time college head coach, to arrested, to unemployed all in less time than it takes for Amazon to fulfill an online book order. That’s a crushing blow for any man.

Game over.

I bring up Haywood’s case not to condemn him before the facts are known, but rather because what happened to him is a lot like things that have happened to many others, just under more private circumstances.  We have our dreams.  We work and labor and sacrifice to bring them about, in some cases for many years.  Then, just we’re about to reap the fruit of our labor, just as the prize is nearly within our grasp, suddenly it’s whisked away and the dream is smashed into a thousand pieces.  This very thing has happened to me.  When I was in high school, more than anything in all the world I wanted to be a professional musician.  I practiced, attended summer music camp, and played in all kinds of musical ensembles.  During my senior year I was the co-winner of my youth orchestra’s concerto competition and was admitted on a French Horn scholarship to the University of Cincinnati’s College-Conservatory of Music, one of the best music schools in the country.  I thought I was about to realize a dream.  But my dream quickly became a nightmare.  Due to the lingering effects of a lip injury I had sustained from practicing too much, I struggled with the instrument the entire time I was at the Conservatory.  And if my struggles with the instrument weren’t bad enough, I managed to flop in the classroom as well, failing to maintain the B average I needed to keep my scholarship.  After three frustrating and fruitless years at the school, I was mercifully and unceremoniously kicked out of the program for good.  How did I feel?  In a word, devastated.  I felt like an embarrassing failure.  Music was my world.  My best friend.  The thing that sustained me during high school.  Now it was all gone.  How could God be so unfair, so cruel, so angry with me that he would take away what I loved more than anything in all the world, and do it at the very time when I was supposed to be reaching for the stars? 

Game over. 

Of course, life didn’t end there.  I got over my loss..sort of.  After taking a year off school, I went back to finish up my B.A., this time as a Liberal Arts major.  But my degree was cold comfort.  Really, it felt more like a booby prize than an accomplishment.  And as hard as it is to admit this, instead of turning to God and seeking his counsel and trusting in his providence, I let my anger at him grow into a bitterness that consumed much of the next twenty years of my life.  What a waste.  While my high school friends were getting married, having children, building careers and homes and lives, I was laboring in low-level, low-wage, dead-end jobs that I hated and which served only to reinforce my bitterness. 

Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t as though I didn’t know God at all during this time.  While I did go through a period when I actually did reject him in toto, I repented of this sin and came to a genuine, saving faith in Christ.  But the bitterness and deep sense of failure simply would not go away.  What Christ said to the disciples on the Emmaus road could just as easliy have been applied to me, “O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe in all that he prophets have spoken!”  I understood what the words, “all things work together for good to those who love God” meant, but in truth, I didn’t believe them. 

During this time, I began to consider going to seminary and pursuing the ministry.  Over the course of several years, I talked to people I trusted, visited schools, prayed and agonized over the decision.  Finally in August 2006, I decided to attend Knox Seminary in Fort Lauderdale.  After quitting my job, leaving the only home I had ever known and moving to Fort Lauderdale, I began my studies in Knox’s M.Div. program and almost immediately realized that I had made a terrible mistake.  I realized that I lacked the financial and church support to have a legitimate chance to succeed in ministry.  Certain spiritual and personal qualities were missing as well.  What was worse, one of my professors turned out to be a flagrant wolf in sheep’s clothing whose teaching literally made me sick to my stomach every time I sat in his class.  After one semester I returned home, once again feeling like and embarrassing failure. 

Game over?

Well, not so fast. 

My time at Knox, brief and difficult filled as it was, turned out to be one of the best things that ever happened to me.  For God used this “failure” to instruct a more teachable version of Steve Matthews about his providence.  On my return trip from Knox I had the opportunity to meet Dr. John Robbins of The Trinity Foundation, someone whose work I had admired for years.  And I did more than meet him.  For it was there in his Unicoi home on a cold East Tennessee winter’s afternoon that he asked me to begin work on a paper about Knox for The Trinity Foundation.  I had cried out to God to preserve me during my time at Knox, and he had answered.  But this was something totally new.  Up to that time, I had never written very much.  And although I was excited about the prospect of working with Dr. Robbins, or John as he insisted I call him, I didn’t know if I was up to the task of writing a paper for publication.  For over a year I worked, trusting in God that he would bring something good out of my efforts.  And he did just that.  For the end product of my labor was not merely a paper, but a whole book about Knox Seminary titled Imagining a Vain Thing:  The Decline and Fall of Knox Seminary.   That book, edited by John Robbins and Tom Juodaitis, was published by The Trinity Foundation in 2008.  Never in my wildest dreams did I ever think that I would write a book.  But that’s exactly what happened.  Never in my wildest dreams did I ever hope to have a mentor as good as John.  But God, in his gracious divine providence, gave me the opportunity to work with Dr. Robbins, a truly outstanding Christian scholar.    

Nothing is too difficult for almighty God, who sovereignly called forth light from darkness and even now upholds the universe by the Word of his power.  This same God, out of his divine mercy, had compassion on a frightened, bitter, doubting and foolish man like me.  He alone caused me to understand and believe the Gospel.  He alone taught me the great promise of Romans 8:28, “all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose,” at a time when my external circumstances gave me little reason to think this was true.  He alone taught me to walk by faith and not by sight.  And this he does for all who call upon his name.  

I don’t mean to sound as though I have overcome all doubts or struggles, or have perfect insight in how God could bring out of all my sins and failures.  I know myself well enough that the next time some plan of mine blows up in my face, I’ll almost certainly have to wrestle with the matter of God’s providence once again.  I don’t know what the new year will bring for you or for me.  Perhaps some great success, perhaps a devastating loss.  But whatever the case this I must say:  God is faithful, even when we are not. May those of us who claim Christ trust fully in him whatever comes our way, knowing that God’s great promises never fail, that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to his purpose. 

For the Christian, it’s never game over. 

Brethren, may the God of truth guide you in all wisdom throughout the new year.  Grace and Peace.