A former NFL player talks about growing up in church but finding his own faith later, and how it kept him grounded through career struggles. He felt like an outlier among teammates for taking his beliefs seriously.
You always had kind of a spiritual background growing up and everything, or did it get stronger? Did you find it? Talk to me a little bit about your path growing up. I mean, were you using that as your anchor when you were hit with adversity throughout your career?
Absolutely, and I would say all of the above. You know, even though I was raised in the church, there's still a personal relationship that I had to develop for myself. It's one thing to know everything about what you're being taught. It's one thing to know, you know, everything about a person, and it's another thing to actually get to know that person and then to actually believe what you're being taught and not just know what you're being taught. And so that has strengthened over time, and that's been a process and a journey of its own, to be honest. And it's something that, that I've actually held onto, especially in the later years of my career.
Is that a common theme with guys on the team? Is that a common theme in the NFL, where people have a strong faith, or are you kind of in the minority with that?
It's hard to say. A lot of times I feel like I'm in the minority with that. But there are a lot of. And not, not just, you know, in the sports world, I would say just in general, there's a lot of people that profess to believe, but then again, it goes back to, it's one thing to believe, but are you actually submitted to what you say you believe in, willing to do whatever for what you say you believe in? And that is. That's something that I had to figure out on my own, to be honest. And so I don't say that in a judgmental way. I say that in a. I learned that myself.
How much time would you say you spend investing in yourself spiritually?
Not enough. Not enough. I, I wish I could spend more time, to be honest. I, I, you know, whenever I tell people about spending time with the Lord and spending time, you know, spiritually, when it comes to reading the Bible, I say there are, I believe three different ways. I think I say three, but I'm just going to list them. One is I read the Bible to study something. I'm reading it because I'm trying to study it, to know it. The second way is I read it to learn something, because I'm going through something and I need to get something from this. And then the third way is I read it just to spend time. I don't go back to try to reread something I couldn't remember. You know, the time has passed. And that last one is the most crucial one for me because that's what's helped develop my personal relationship with Jesus. It's because I look at that as my time to just sit on the couch with him. I don't remember every second that goes by when I'm watching TV with the boys or when I'm playing video games with the boys. But I'm enjoying that time. And so it's the same thing when I'm reading. Sometimes I just read to spend time.
