Cutting Down the Nets

March Madness is a fantastic time of the year. Thrilling games, wild upsets, Cinderella stories. So many things to love.

And one of the things I love best is the tradition of cutting down the nets. It happens at the end of each conference tournament with the winning team cutting down the nets, claiming victory and marching forward, guaranteed, to the NCAA Tournament. It happens at the end of each regional final, with the victorious team cutting down the nets, claiming victory and marching forward to the Final Four. And it happens at the end of the tournament, claiming victory and marking the end of the accomplishment.

But think about what else it does: it transforms the net from something useful to something destroyed. Sure, it's a great sign of victory, but it's also a sign saying "we've done all we can here, now we need to move forward. We can celebrate this victory, but we can't just dwell on it forever."

A couple of weeks back at jOURney, we talked about Philipians 3, and how Paul lists some of his great accomplishments and calls them basically trash. And I got to thinking last night, that the cutting down of nets is a great analogy to our accomplishment list that is similar (but pales in comparison) to Paul.

I'd never say that what we've done and what we've accomplished is completely worthless. It's great to have memories and to learn and grow. But we can't keep standing on the ground of what we won/accomplished/did/learned/etc. That will never move us forward.

By "cutting down our nets", we get to celebrate an accomplishment in the moment, but we also get a reminder that we need to move forward. We're left with a personal trophy that won't mean much to anyone else, but it's a reminder of success we had in the past that will help us in the future. But we can't just throw that old net back up there, because it won't work anymore. We have to rely on our faith and the talents God has given us to move forward, not the stockpile of trophies.

(And Trevor, can you believe it ... it's been weeks and I still remember this teaching? Amazing, isn't it?)