Jesus Christ is LIFE. The Rest is Just…
An article on How It All Started
Just before my first practice as a high school wrestling coach, I stood in the basement laundry room with a t-shirt that proudly stated on the front: “Wrestling is Life. The rest is just details…” I couldn’t pull it over my head! I called out to my wife and asked her to come down stairs and when she arrived in the laundry room, I told her I couldn’t wear the shirt because Wrestling isn’t life!
To live by the statement “Wrestling is Life” I must believe that wrestling is my business, my religion, my hobby, my sweetheart, my bread and my meat. I must succumb to whatever demands wrestling puts on my life. All my money is spent in moving forward the cause of wrestling. Wrestling is what I do in the day and what I dream about in the night. I must train as much as possible, compete in every competition, eat, drink, and sleep wrestling. Read books about wrestling, watch videos on wrestling, talk about wrestling. Evaluate my relationships based on their love for wrestling.
To state “the rest is just details…” implies that everything other than wrestling is insignificant. The details are the little things necessary to achieve success in wrestling.
As I stood in the basement considering the t-shirt, I thought of John 14:6a “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life…”.
Jesus Christ is Life! Not wrestling!
There in my laundry room, God led me to create a t-shirt that simply states on the front of the shirt: “Jesus Christ is Life.” Jesus is who I am. Then on the back: “the rest is just wrestling.” To say “the rest is just wrestling” is to say that wrestling is at most second to all that I am in Jesus. I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ lives in me, and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.
As we consider the wrestling fanatic above, let’s pray that we are as fanatical about Jesus.
For nearly 20 years, “Jesus Christ is Life” shirts have been worn by anyone from little kids to Olympic Champions.
