No JV
Mark E. Haskins
Feburary 25, 2026
Last month’s blog ended with an important question: What is that wonderful and uniquely Bestowed, Heartfelt, Authentic, Gift from God that you have been given and that can be used for Godly purposes today? I must confess to having frequently doubted the possibility of a personally good answer to that question. How about you?
The doubts that surface in this regard are often rooted in facets of our formative years and contemporary culture. For me, there are at least two forces that planted those doubts. First, I am a product of a performance-based culture—many of us are. At home, school, work and even at church the message I got was that if you perform well, favor comes your way. If not, you were scolded, criticized or simply ignored as there was always more you needed to do. Secondly, and going back a number of years, I was enticed to try out for the high school basketball team with some friends. The good news was that several of us made the cut. The bad news was, I ended up on the junior varsity (JV) team. The extra bad news was that in spite of faithfully going to practice, working hard, giving my best, doing all that the coaches asked me to do I ended up lettering in bench warming. Every game night, for an entire season, I was reminded that I was not good enough. In a deeply insidious way, I brought these two messages to my Christian walk. The net effect was a belief that I had to be better before God could “promote” me to a playing position on His varsity team. Does any of that remind you of your journey?
There are countless and continuously condemning ways we absorb a JV, not good enough, message. Professionally, maybe you had numerous job applications rejected. Did others get promoted at work but not you? Were your job ratings “average”, never “excellent” or “outstanding”? Did you lose your job while many peers did not? Socially, were you repeatedly turned down by that special someone for a date? Did an invitation to the season’s football tailgates never come? Athletically, were you often one of the last picked for the neighborhood ball game? Were you ever a benchwarmer, too? Such signals can foster a disqualifying self-image.
After a while and with such a JV mindset, the verdict arrives—guilty of not measuring up. Then, we either try harder or we check out. Indeed, “…the secular world tells us through subtle and overt ways that we don’t measure up … [and then] self-rejection [becomes] the greatest enemy of the spiritual life because it contradicts the sacred voice that calls us the ‘Beloved’. The great temptation is to use our obvious failures and disappointments … to convince ourselves that we are really not worth being loved [by our Heavenly Father].”1 I have camped there. You?
Such a self-image infects our heart and even our view of God. It leads to beliefs of failure and unworthiness as well as feelings of shame or depression. “I’ll never be good enough.” “The score He keeps will never be in my favor.” “The Lord can’t really use me until I get my act together.” “I’m His, but I’m only on His JV team.” “I don’t have much to offer.” “I won’t boldly venture forth with all my shortcomings.” Uhg! Score a big win for the Enemy. We know all this to be a lie but deep down, if we are totally honest, those messages often take root.
There is hope and the prospect of more. Let’s recall that Jesus assembled a team and partnered with people who, in many instances, “would have been disqualified for service if they had been chosen based on what they were when [He] called them.”2 Think of Peter, Mary Magdalene, Matthew, Paul, and others of ill repute or no repute. And, this is important for our hearts, in becoming men and women for Kingdom moments and purposes, those people were not Kingdom exceptions, they were Kingdom examples of what walking with the Lord can be.3 They are examples for us—dare I say, of us.
I thank Gary Barkalow4, and a few others, for shining an undeniable light on the falsehood of me, or anyone else, being on God’s JV team because God DOES NOT have a JV team. We can easily think He does as we look around and compare ourselves to gifted ministry leaders, talented gospel musicians, and prolific Christian authors. The truth is that we are each varsity players right where we are. Period. In addition, we have a God-given glory and opportunity to minister right where we are. Period. We have, as Yogi Berra has quipped in another context, “We have deep depth”5 to offer because we have each had a unique journey with the Lord. We are all ministers, with a ministry, even if we don’t carry that professional title.
It is invaluable to have others in our life who know us well and who can lovingly speak such Godly truth into our life. They can counter the Enemy’s lying whispers and they can give voice to what God wants us to know about ourselves. Among many, two messages He wants us to hear:
1. You and I are individually and uniquely His “handiwork”, His “workmanship” (Ephesians 2: 10). That means, unlike a pottery or glass-blowing studio, the Lord has no shelf with seconds on it. He has only firsts. You and I are His firsts.6
2. By virtue of being followers of Jesus, we are not benchwarmers—we are in the game, we are in the race. You and I are encouraged to “lay aside everything that hinders us, and the sin that clings about us, and run with patient endurance the race that lies before us” (Hebrews 12: 1 TCNT). For me, the sin that clings is unbelief—believing the lie that I don’t have an important role, a unique role, a God-provided role to play in His kingdom. You and I each bring something unique, important, and needed to His earthly presence (Romans 12 and I Corinthians 12).
As last month’s blog also noted, we must avoid the “prison of expectations.”7 Don’t should on yourself or let others do that to you. Let’s let the Lord be the One who guides, opens the doors, and partners with us for the results He desires from our walk with Him. We only know part of the story, part of the effects of our lives on another person. And that is ok. Perhaps our daily prayer can simply be, “Lord, open my eyes to the moments, the people, and the opportunities you have for me today. Remind me that You do not have a JV team. Help me to have a willing and bold heart to be what you want me to be in every moment, with everyone. Enable me to trust You with authoring the larger story. Amen.” Caution . . . this is a serious prayer. It may not always lead to what we prefer or most readily want to embrace. And yet, we know He will be with us on that path. Let’s also remember that “our redemption story [is] one in which ‘freedom from’ is inexorably bound with ‘freedom to’.”8 We have been freed from guilt, regret, shame, and condemnation. We have been freed from feeling unworthy, unable, or unwanted on His kingdom team. In His kingdom, we are then free to live life like first stringers without a I-have-to-get-better To Do list. Indeed, our Savior declared, “All is finished” (John 19: 30 TCNT, and John 17: 4). This was such a profound and precious declaration—one cementing the existence of the New Covenant wherein ALL redemptive work is complete!
“Lord, we do believe we are unconditionally loved by You and valued players on Your team. We are ready to play. Thank you for wanting us to participate. Thank you for reminding us that with a mind and heart attuned to You, all moments are Kingdom moments wherein we can experience and share with others the breadth, depth, height, and length of [Your] love!" (Ephesians 3: 16-19)
1 Henri Nouwen (2017), You Are the Beloved (IMAGE, NY, NY), pp. xii, 14 and 394.
2 Gene A. Getz (1998), *The Apostles *(Broadman & Holman Publishers, Nashville, TN), p. 4. See also John MacArthur (2002), *Twelve Ordinary Men *(Thomas Nelson, Nashville, TN).
3 This point is made by John Eldredge (2008), Walking with God (Thomas Nelson, Nashville, TN), see pp. 14-15.
4 For more about Gary and his impactful ministry, go to https://thenobleheart.com/.
5 Nate Scott (March 28, 2019), “The 50 greatest Yogi Berra quotes,” available at https://ftw.usatoday.com/2019/03/the-50-greatest-yogi-berra-quotes (accessed 3-18-24).
6 The May 2025 and July 2025 blogs remind us of our identity in God’s eyes and the danger of comparisons.
7 Will Burns (August 31, 2021), “Creativity and the prison of expectations”, available at https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/creativity-prison-expectations-will-burns/ (accessed 4-27-25).
8 Alistair J. Roberts and Andrew Wilson (2018), Echoes of Exodus, (Crossway, Wheaton, NJ), p. 16.
NOTES: TCNT (Twentieth Century New Testament), Revised Edition, Published in 1900-1904 by Fleming H. Revell Company, in the public domain.
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