Today Jim Zorn is the head coach of the Washington Redskins Football Club but he first rose to fame as the quarterback of the Seattle Seahawks during their expansion days. He was a left handed thrower who helped to put wide receiver Steve Largent, now a US Congressman, into the hall of fame. He was a very good ball player in his day and was voted the rookie of the year in his first season.
I met Zorn shortly after he retired from professional football when he came to speak at an outreach banquet for us. I was talking to him before the banquet and I said something to the effect that people in the professional football ranks really “had it made—had no worries like the rest of us.” Zorn took exception with my comment and I have never forgotten the reason why he took exception.
Zorn said that once you get to the starting position on a professional football team that everyone in the world—your coach, your fellow players, your fans, your agent, your sportswriters, your team management, your team owner, and even your kids—is asking, “What have you done for me today?” He went on to explain that no one in the world of professional sports really cares what you did last year or even last game—you must perform today—end of discussion. Zorn said, as near as I can remember his quote, “At this level there are always three young, talented, hungry guys scratching to take your spot.” It is one of the many brutal realities of sports at the professional level.
To say it another way, “One of the ‘new devils’ at the professional level is that you must perform every day and every game or you will be on the bench or on the street.” There is no grace and no coasting at the professional level. At the YMCA “participation” level you can be a goalie who is behind the net picking dandelions and still stay on the team and even stay in the game. At the professional level if you are picking dandelions, or doing anything that remotely resembles picking dandelions, you can pack your things and go in search of a new career.
Life is a long series of “moving-up-a-level” experiences. We move from kindergarten to first grade, or from middle school to high school, or from engineer to project manager, or from club member to club president, or from team member to team captain, or from salesman to sales manager, or from second string to first string, or from busser to waiter.
In this “moving up” process we spend a lot of time and energy desiring to move up and wanting more responsibility and more money and more control and more recognition—and we spend very little time and energy considering the struggles that are coming with that new level. At new levels there are new challenges.
My friend, Pastor Steve Meeks, put it very succinctly when he said: “New Levels, New Devils.”
Each time we “move up a level” in life responsibility or personal advancement we face a whole new set of challenges, temptations, and problems. The level above us may look very attractive from the plateau that we standing on but what we do not realize is that the plateau above us is inhabited by some beasts that do not live on our level of the mountain. We may see the money or the glamour or the recognition or the influence of the level above us but what we don’t see are the new threats and predators. We see Jim Zorn carried off the field after a great victory or hawking after shave lotion on TV. What we don’t see are the young kids nipping at his heels for his job—every day of the year.
I remember sitting in chapel at Dallas Seminary one day when Dr. John Walvoord, the president of the school, said to the student body, “I hear various ones of you moaning about trusting God for your tuition money. What you need to understand is that your tuition pays for exactly half of the cost of running this school. While you are individually trusting God for half of the money it costs to educate you alone, I am trusting God for the other half of what it costs to educate every one of you together.” New levels, new devils.
Paul said the same thing in a different way in 1 Timothy 3:6 when he gave instructions about who should be an elder in the local church and who should not: “…and not a new convert, so that he will not become conceited and fall into the condemnation incurred by the devil.”
What Paul was saying is that at the elder level there are some very dangerous devils and one of those devils is that the devil himself will tempt an elder to personal pride and that will result in a personal fall. (Proverbs 16:18)
Here is my point, lest it be too subtle or too poorly stated: There is nothing wrong with desiring a new level in life—just be sure you are prepared for the new devils at those new levels. When you get up on that new plateau the new devils will be after you—period. There will be no mercy and no compassion. They will not give you time to “adjust because you are new to this level.” The devils at the new levels do not care that you are new to this level. They just live and act and attack at this level and they don’t even know you are new here. A lion is willing to eat an old gazelle that makes a mistake and the lion is willing to eat a young gazelle that doesn’t even know he made a mistake. A lion never says, “I’ll give that young guy a break—he’s new here.”
“Be of sober spirit, be on the alert. Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.” 1 Peter 5:8.
Go ahead and strive for new levels. Just be sure you are ready for the new devils.
