Trophy Love
“I stand in the middle of my living room and feel the floor shaking. I briefly consider the possibility that Vegas is being struck by an earthquake. I don’t know what to do, where to stand. I walk to the shelf that holds my tennis trophies and pick one up. I hurl it through the living room, through the kitchen. It breaks in several pieces. I pick up another and hurl it against the wall. One by one I do this with my trophies. Davis Cup? Smash. U.S. Open? Smash. Wimbledon? Smash, Smash. …I pick up the broken pieces and smash them against the walls and then against other things in the house.”
The scene above, from Andre Agassi’s book, Open, comes on the heels of a painful and confusing episode with his then girlfriend Brooke Sheilds, and amidst the realities of Andre’s unstable heart and emotional torture. Amidst the emotional, spiritual, and relational contexts of Andre’s life, all the trophies which represented his fame, fortune, and accomplishments, came to represent an imprisonment for him. All the things which so many assumed were bringing him life and joy, actually, had become for him, a trap, a drudgery. His professional life had become a pursuit of the dreams others had for him, his relational life was severely lacking, and his inner world was catastrophic. In light of that reality, the trophies meant very little.
Eventually, Andre found his way free from a life of trophy boredom, relational collapses, and emotional instability. But it did not come easy. His journey from a confused, angry prodigy to impassioned giver and builder and promoter for the underprivileged and uneducated has not come to him on a silver platter with his name etched in it. It was a fight won on the fists of love, friendship, relational stability, and faith. Only as Andre has come to know who he is, who his true friends are, what love really looks like, what is important in life, and who his God is, did he make his was out of a life of destructive and painful patterns. As he came to find out, life is bigger than the trophies.
Some men marry trophy wives. Some women marry into trophy families. Some live for trophy careers. Some wear their ability to party like a rock star as a trophy. Some show off their bodies as a trophy for the world to see. Some educate their kids in order to make them trophy offspring. Some hold up their little black books as trophies. Others build trophy houses, buy trophy cars, have trophy second and third homes or collect trophy titles. Somehow, if not careful, wall all seek the trophy life. Trophies are not inherently bad, but all too often we make the trophy the thing and forget the journey which is the real thing.
I have always loved sports. Growing up I played almost everything. I ran track, played baseball, football, tennis, hoops, swam a bit, and played soccer. Because God decided to give me a decent amount of genetic coding which offered me a measure of coordination, I always did fairly well in whatever sport I played. Along the way, I collected a fair number of ribbons, medal, plaques, and trophies. Nearly all of those are gone now, sucked into some vacuous space reserved for such things, but some memories remain. What stands out for me, now, as a broken down, tired, and aching nearly forty-one year old, is the journey which all of those trophies represented. What I remember now is not the trophies themselves, but the stuff behind them. In fact, what stands out for me is not the first place markers, but rather, those which represented the heart of the matter. I remember the hustle awards, the hardest worker awards, the most tenacious awards, and the others which represented my inner self rather than the accomplishment. For me, now, those trophies and the others I have acquired in life and work, are about the heart that went into the journey. Its about who I am, and what I want to be. Few, if any of them, have come easily. Many have been accompanied by pain; physical, emotional, relational, financial, and otherwise. But those markers are now about the journey.
What I have come to know, and need to know more and more every day, is the fact that trophies will never offer me what I most crave. Sadly, one all too prevalent memory for me is of one tournament, where as a child, longing to win, I cheated a guy out of a point, and went on to win the match and the tournament, and the trophy. I pulled a McEnroe-esque move that day, contesting a call I should not have been contesting, broke the guy down, got the edge, and shrunk my heart in the process. I hated looking at that trophy for the years I had it, and learned through that “success” never to fail that way again. The inner pain was enormous. What a loser I was, winning that way. That trophy was not enough to secure my inner world.
As was the case in Andre’s life, trophies will mean very little in light of the brokenness of life. In those moments when relationships are tested, destroyed, or otherwise mangled, no trophy will ever be able to soothe me. When the love I extend is returned with malice or unkindness, no trophy I go out and seek will ever heal my hurt. When my kids are hurting or have wandered down a destructive path, no trophy will comfort me or bring them back. When my financial world falls apart, I have no hope of defining myself by my trophies. And when my life is done, and I am put in a box and buried, no trophy case will be enough to preach a good funeral.
The story of Andre Agassi’s life is emblematic of what is true of all our lives. There is only one trophy worth pursuing which will offer us any lasting significance. That trophy is the trophy of God’s love and intimacy with Him. It is not a trophy we can point to on a diploma, its not a trophy we can show off on our mantle, and its not a trophy we can bring into a social setting on our arm. It is the quiet, generous, grace-filled, loving reality which resides in our hearts, and which offers boundless opportunity for love to others. It is “showed off” in our daily lives as we extend grace in place of brashness, love in place of selfishness, forgiveness in place of record keeping, peace in place of fear, purity in place of pleasure, faithfulness in place of self-seeking, honesty in place of deceit, emotional poise in place of reaction, hope in place of despair, wisdom in place of advice, truth telling in place of gossip, holiness in place of worldliness, family in place of individual pursuit, worship in place of neglect, and the truth of Christ in place of culture.
What we must recognize in a world where hearts, every day, are being thrown against a wall of pain, spite, selfishness and pride, is that no remedy remains for our healing outside of the plan of God. There is no accomplishment, pursuit, pill or person who can or will be able to offer us what only God can offer. He alone is our stability when faced with the gut wrenching realities of life on this planet. He alone offers us perspective and clarity when all around us is success upon success. He alone offers healing when our hearts have been dashed upon the rocky cliffs of life. He alone brings us humility when everyone else extends exuberant praise. Outside of Him there is no accolade large enough to quiet our souls. In relationship with Him, there is no brokenness so severe that it cannot be healed. Only in releasing the trophy of our own heart to Him can we find that healing.
He is the trophy each of our hearts seek. He is our journey. May we pursue Him.
Bruce Smith
optimuslife.org
soulstormsite.com