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Take a Knee
by John Bishop
Director of Spiritual Formation
Director of Spiritual Formation
Mario Cristobal found himself in a firestorm of media attention last fall after neglecting to tell his team to take a knee in a game against Georgia Tech. UM ended up losing the game and consequently their undefeated streak. No one was happy about this decision! We want to win!
We were winning the game. There were only 26 seconds left on the clock! The headline on USA TODAY Sports read, “Cristobal Coaching Blunder, Bad Call, Doom Miami against Georgia Tech.”
At the risk of being a little unpopular, I’m going to come to Cristobal’s defense a little. First of all, you don’t get to that level of success by making consistently bad calls; the whole system makes sure we never know the names of people who do that. Secondly, you can’t win in that role, not really. If you have a killer season, you’re a hero and everyone loves you. If you make a bad call, you’re being blasted on the cover of USA TODAY Sports. That’s a lot of pressure!
So, what do we really want from our leaders? We want to win, right? But apparently not enough to run another play with 26 seconds left on the clock.
This is not a new issue. In Exodus chapter 5, Moses goes before Pharaoh and tells him to let the Israelites go. That makes him mad, and his response is to treat them with contempt by taking away their supplies and demanding the same production. When the crowds hear about the call Moses made, they’re not happy and they say in verse 21, “May the Lord look on you and judge you! You have made us obnoxious to Pharaoh and have put a sword in their hand to kill us.” i.e., there were only 26 seconds left on the clock!! Why would you even give them a shot at it?
More important than what the crowds were shouting was Moses’ response. The very next verse says, “Moses returned to the Lord and said, “Why, Lord?” Moses took a knee.
How do we deal with all the pressures of life? What do we do with failure? What do we do with victories? In the game against Georgia Tech, Cristobal decided not to take a knee and keep driving. That’s a real Pharaoh move, but I don’t know if he has a pharaoh spirit. It’s possible when the cameras went out and the crowds dispersed that he found a quiet spot somewhere and took a knee and said something like, “Why, Lord…”.
Here’s the issue, we are all living under a tyranny. We’re tyrannized by time, by our health, by the desire to keep up with others, by money, or the lack of it. What do we do when we’re in this position? I want to suggest if you want to win, take a knee.
After Moses gets the Israelites out of Egypt, they’re in the desert hungry and thirsty. They’ve escaped the worst of the tyranny of slavery, but now they’re hungry and thirsty. And they do what we all do, they look to their coach and complain (Exodus 16:2). But Moses is the kind of leader who knows how to humble himself and seek after God. And when he’s under criticism from the same crowd over the calls he’s making, he takes a knee, “Then the Lord said to Moses, ‘I will rain down bread from heaven…’ (Exodus 16:4).
We already know this is how it works because just a few days before the headlines blasted Cristobal, they were praising McDaniels. Even though we could have kicked the field goal and beaten the all-time NFL scoring record, McDaniels decided to take a knee.
How about you? Whether you’re winning or losing, whether you’re being celebrated or criticized, whether you’re trapped in tyranny or headed to the promised land, will you take a knee?
Westminster Christian School, located in Palmetto Bay, Florida, is a private, college-preparatory school for children from preschool through twelfth grade.