Dan Towler — Acknowledging
Him
Trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him and he will direct your paths. Proverbs 3:5-6
. . . he who glories, let him glory in the Lord. 2 Corinthians 10:17
You will either acknowledge God in your life today or you will acknowledge yourself. There is no in-between. Either you will act as though God were a living Presence in all you do and say or you will act as though you were the Prime Mover yourself. And it will be apparent to everyone who observes you.
During three awful days in June of 1950, this truth was driven home to me with force.
That was the month I left my home town and traveled west to join the Los Angeles Rams at their training camp in California. There had been a number of favorable press notices surrounding my signing into professional football. And I'd committed the unpardonable sin of a professional athlete right at the beginning: I'd believed my own clippings.
As a result I came to the training camp with a sense of self-importance. I wasn't just another one of the rookies. I was a VIP. And I expected the other men to
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recognize this. Not too surprisingly, I found other men there with their clippings. And they were waiting for recognition too. This produced some situations that seem amusing in retrospect, but which were not so funny at the time.
For instance, lights in the dormitories were supposed to be out at 11 o'clock each night. But I knew that crossing the room from my bunk to the light switch for this menial duty was certainly outside the dignity of my position. And since both of my roommates felt exactly the same way, the lights stayed on long after eleven, until the coach himself stopped by and turned them off.
In Redlands, California, in summer, the shades must be drawn during the heat of the day or the nights become insufferable. But once again, I felt that drawing those shades was a task beneath my dignity. And my roommates felt the same. As a result, we nearly suffocated with the heat for two nights.
On the third evening after dinner, I went to my room and locked the door. I opened my suitcase and took out the Bible that was packed away there (undisturbed since my arrival in camp).
At home and in college, I had read my Bible every evening and taken time to review each day with God. But somehow, in the long, 2000-mile trip to an unfamiliar part of the country, I'd come to feel that this was unnecessary. But now I knew I'd been wrong. It was clear to me that for three whole days, my life had drifted aimlessly.
I asked Christ to take over again. I turned over to Him all my new relationships: to my roommates, the coaches and others. I told him the anxieties I had about making the team, anxieties I'd been trying to hide from
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myself. I asked Him to give me the ability to get along with the other fellows and to be a real part of the team for as long as I played.
I opened the Bible and read Proverbs 3:6: "In all your ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct your paths." I knew now what had been the trouble. For three days I had been acknowledging myself and seeking acknowledgment from others. And for those same three days, I had failed to acknowledge Him.
When I arose from my knees, I had regained my sense of purpose. I knew why I was at training camp, why I was in professional football. I was there to glorify God with the talent He had given me.
As a young man, Dwight L. Moody had been a shoemaker. And about that early part of his life he said, "I drove nails in shoes for the glory of God."
I resolved to throw passes, block, tackle and kick a football for the glory of God. And off the field, I resolved that my language, my relationships with others, the books I read, the company I kept, everything would be done for the same reason. As the season wore on, I asked the coach one day if the entire team might pray before each game. Out of 100,000 boys in America who would have given anything to play this game, we had been chosen through the grace of God. Why not kneel before each game and acknowledge that fact?
In my second year something happened that thrilled and humbled me as much as anything in my career. I'd been selected to play in the annual Pro Bowl Game, and boys from every other National League team met together to practice. When the day of the big game finally came and we were assembled in the locker room, a boy from one of the other clubs said, "Dan, let's have a prayer."
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I hope it's always clear that the purpose of my life is the acknowledgment of God.
Prayer
Dear Lord, take this day into Your hands. Show me how each detail of the work I do may be made an occasion for acknowledgment of Your goodness and mercy. I ask it in Jesus' name. Amen.
Dan Towler was an All-American running back with Washington and Jefferson; All-Pro leading ground-gaining fullback for the Los Angeles Rams; pastor in Pasadena, California. Board of Directors, Fellowship of Christian Athletes.
