Play Your Assignment

It was a typical Saturday afternoon at the Sterks. The Michigan versus Purdue football game was showcased on our TV screen as we cheered on the undefeated Wolverines. With the score 28-0 and the maize and blue well in charge, the TV panned to an on-field announcer coming out of a timeout. She reiterated what a member of the Purdue coaching staff firmly said when asked how to stay with the Wolverines: “Everyone needs to play their assignment.”

The coach didn’t express some newfound idea to beat the #3 team in the nation, but stuck to the game plan. Stuck to the truth of what He believed was best for his team. His job was to encourage his fellow players to just play their given assignment. The assignment they’ve been practicing all week. But not just on one play, but every play. Just do what you were trained and coached to do. Do what you were given to do. Don’t deviate from the plan.

You don’t have to be a sports fanatic like myself to envision what would happen if the QB decided to play wide receiver while the center hiked the ball. Or if the offensive lineman decided he wanted to just watch the play instead of being part of it. His poor quarterback would get the living daylights knocked out of him and it’d be utter chaos! Imagine seeing that in the ESPN Top 10 reels.

We might chuckle at this idea, but I find myself ignoring what my “Coach” says and I try to find a different assignment because I don’t want to do the one given to me. That simple comment made by the Purdue coaching staff, really, is as Biblical as it is true for the sport of football.

I’ll admit, I’ve reluctantly walked onto the field of cancer again, not wanting to play my assignment. I begrudgingly have gone to treatments, grieved what this is doing to our family again, and to be quite frank, kinda want to walk off the field sometimes. But that’s not who God has called me to be. He desires for me to play my assignment. Because that’s where it gets good. That’s where it’s perfect in His perfectly designed game plan.

Now I want to be careful here and say that God doesn’t “need” me. He doesn’t need anything or anyone because He is all He needs, if that makes sense. But what he desires is a relationship with us and for us to be part of His Kingdom-building process. He invites us in. He asks us to get out on the field, aka His Kingdom ground, to be used as instruments in his battle against the sin and brokenness of this world.

My friend, we have a chance to LIVE OUT OUR ASSIGNMENT EVERYDAY. But what if we choose not to? It’s a detriment to ourselves and others. Here we have the privilege to be on the mission field, with the assignment God has given us. And what is that assignment you might ask? To glorify God through the God-honoring gifts and talents He has given SPECIFICALLY to us.

You have a specific role to play. And God, out of His grace, chose YOU to be on the field. Now if you ask me, that is quite a humbling calling. That the God of the universe, would invite ME to play in the game? I want to be all in.

And I have a chance to live out my assignment here on this earth, as a cancer patient. I don’t know what every play will look like, but I do know who will win the game. It might be gritty and downright rough and tough at times. I might even feel like I got sacked. But we have the chance to get up time and time again, because we know WHO is victorious. You see, we have the privilege of knowing the end goal already. The winning touchdown. It doesn’t make the current play easy, but it does make it worth it.

I want to end with saying that this whole leukemia journey has introduced me to people I never would have met or grown closer to, if it wasn’t for this journey. I have been on the receiving end of those who are “playing their assignment” and encouraging their teammate in ways I never would’ve imagined. I feel selfish in saying that because it sounds like personal gain, but I tell you this simply to reiterate the fact that when everyone plays their assignment, you never know who it will bless. We are in this game together and I have cried on numerous occasions recently, recognizing that we aren’t on the field alone.

We are all on the same team as followers of Christ. We all have different assignments from God in His Kingdom. Let’s rally around each other and play our given assignments, knowing that in the end, we’ve been given the ultimate victory through salvation. Thank you, my Savior, for winning the battle for us!

Now, go and play your assignment.