Latest sports sensation quotes John Piper

I am back to blogging after a week-long break, including a trip to Nashville for the Renew Conference. I plan to post on that conference, which was on suffering and the gospel. In the meantime, I have a couple of items.

You may have missed this, but the last week or so has seen the sudden rise of the latest sports sensation, Jeremy Lin. He is the first Taiwanese American to play in the National Basketball Association, and his first five games as a starter have been startling. He has scored 136 points in his initial five starts, a record for any player since the NBA and ABA merged in the 1970s. The New York Knicks have won all five games he has started as point guard.

More importantly, Lin is a Christian, and he appears to be committed to following Jesus and seeking God's glory. I first heard about him when he was playing at Harvard. After a year of basically riding the bench in the NBA after signing as a free agent, he was dropped earlier this year by two teams before the Knicks picked him up. May God use him to glorify Himself and spread the gospel, and may his fellow believers pray to that end.

This Feb. 14 post at the Desiring God blog gives some insight into Jeremy Lin:

They're calling it "LinSanity" in New York, and it hit fever pitch tonight after Lin's game winning 3-pointer with less than a second to play in the Knicks win. He finished with 27 points and a career-high 11 assists.

But despite the "LinSanity" he seems to have his head on straight.

The Knicks overnight phenom Jeremy Lin quotes from a section of John Piper's book Don't Waste Your Life in an online testimony recorded last June:

"God created us to live with a single passion to joyfully display his supreme excellence in all the spheres of life."

Lin then adds the following commentary about his coming to treasure Jesus more than basketball success:

When Paul wrote in Philippians to press on for an upward prize, he was living for that, and it made his life meaningful (Philippians 3:15). And I realized I had to learn to do the same. I had to learn to stop chasing the perishable prizes of this earth, I had to stop chasing personal glory, I had to learn how to give my best effort to God and trust him with the results. I have to learn to have enough faith to trust in his grace and to trust in his sovereign and perfect plan. I had to submit my will, my desires, my dreams — give it all up to God and say, "Look, I am going to give my best effort, go on the court and play every day for you, and I'm going to let you take care of the rest." This is something I struggle with every day. . . . Playing for great stats is nice, but that satisfaction — that happiness — is only from game to game. It's temporary.

Indeed, only in God's presence is there "fullness of joy," and only at his right hand are there "pleasures forevermore" (Psalm 16:11).