Convo Connection
“One thing that is constant here at Liberty is change. Everyone hates change but loves progress.”
So said Liberty University President Jerry Falwell as he addressed the student body and faculty before introducing David Nasser, Liberty’s senior vice president of spiritual development.
He is right. Change is hard. Why? Maybe because we are creatures of habit and long for life to roll along exactly how we think it should.
Or maybe, if we dig a little deeper and do a bit of soul searching, we will discover that, much to our dismay, we all idolize or covet our comfort to a certain degree. What do I mean? Although we might not realize it or recognize it, we all crave the status quo to some extent.
We do not like change unless, of course, it benefits us in some way. We like it when things are good in life and stay good. And if we find ourselves in a place of transformation or change, we leverage every tactic available to run from it rather than embrace the pain.
Yet, life is change — grow and outgrow. The only thing that stays the same is Jesus.
To close out Convocation for the week, students, staff and families were introduced to a little NFL football and a family testimony of God’s relentless grace, mercy and love. That family was mine. At approximately 10 a.m. on Friday, Oct. 24, my mom, dad and I took the stage at Liberty University to share our hearts with the entire student body. After reading an article that I wrote for the sports section of the Buffalo News, titled “I’m not afraid to die” (www.jillk.org/journal/), Nasser felt led to invite my family to speak. I have had the opportunity to speak in front of people before and have been doing interviews with my parents for years. However, I have never experienced a stage quite like this before. I was, and still am, overwhelmed, to say the least.
It will never be easy, no matter who the crowd is, to share what God has done in our lives. Maybe that is because it involves our greatest pain — the life and death of my younger brother Hunter. But God is immeasurably merciful and good, and he has allowed our greatest heartbreak to become our greatest joy because of Jesus.
And that is not the only battle our family has had to face.
To give some of the backstory, my dad is a retired NFL quarterback and Hall of Famer, and he has been battling cancer — squamous cell carcinoma of the upper jaw — for the past two years. Just recently, after numerous biopsies, my father was told that the cancer is gone.
Praise the Lord! In the midst of our family’s public battle, we had the opportunity to appear on numerous national media outlets. In addition to sharing the trials and heartbreaks of dealing with cancer, our family was able to share the greater hope that we have in Christ. It has been a very difficult, yet incredibly rewarding, experience. God has allowed me to talk about my faith in ways I never dreamed possible. But I will admit, getting up on the Convocation stage in front of thousands of my peers was both daunting and overwhelming.
I do not know about you, but I want to live out of my comfort zone, radical for God. God does not call us to live a life of comfort. If we lived in that place, then why would we need Jesus? Our discomfort is the platform to display God’s strength. We all seem to long for comfort, but really, what we truly long for is Jesus. If getting out of my comfort zone will draw me into a deeper knowledge and love for my Savior, then there is nothing I want more.