What is greatness? 1

But according to God 2   

When Michael Jordan began his professional sports career he was projected to be a symbol of unparalleled POWER! The NBA was banking on MJ being the face of the league, and there was hefty hype that Jordan would popularize the sport unlike any player who came before him (even surpassing legendary figures like Wilt, Kareem, Magic, and Bird!). And with every MVP trophy, and every All-Star accolade, and every NBA Final Championship …MJ seemed to be fulfilling his destiny as the G.O.A.T., and establishing himself as the unrivaled paradigm of what the perfection of power looks like.

BUT THEN, MJ did something that looked exceedingly FOOLISH! Smack dab in the middle of his most glorious NBA years, he chose to lay aside his basketball glory in order to follow his childhood dream of playing baseball. The world mocked, and scorned, and ridiculed. The pundits jeered saying, “How the G.O.A.T. has squandered his eminence! Making himself look silly and weak, as only a cotton-headed ninny-muggins might do!” But MJ said, “It is my childlike delight to pursue this path of playing minor league baseball. It is something my father and I talked about when I was a kid! And I shall pursue this path of folly. I will defy the wisdom of the wise. And I will thwart the discernment of the discerning. While I am in the midst of my most glorious years of basketball, I will step away from my NBA glory, and I will embrace the humiliation of the project my father and I discussed long ago. Yes, I will make myself yet more contemptible and abased in your eyes.”

According to the economy of the God, this was THE moment of greatness for the one of the greatest sports figures of all time![3] For God says, “True power is folly to those who are perishing, but to those who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written, ‘I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.”[4] And God says, “My power is perfected in weakness.”[5] And God says, “Unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Whoever humbles himself like a child is the greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven.”[6]

[1] This is what we’re dying to know! …Jesus’ disciples came to Him, saying, “Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” [Matthew 18:1]

[2] “My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways.” – God [Isaiah 55:8]

[3] “It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.” ― Theodore Roosevelt

[4] 1 Corinthians 1:18-19

[5] 2 Corinthians 12:9

[6] Matthew 18:1-4