Editor's note: Enjoy today's devotion from Look Again by Tim Tebow.
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A few weeks before submitting this manuscript, I found myself surrounded by boxes of trophies, jerseys, cleats, fragments of a life I had dreamed would play out a certain way. These memorabilia had been sitting in my TV room for years, collecting dust and waiting for me to decide what to do with them. A friend had come over to help. As we unpacked each item, my eyes dampened, reliving memories as I held my College Hall of Fame jersey, a uniform from high school, photographs from SEC championships, the eye black I wore with John 3:16, and more. I smiled at photos from teammates and friends and rode an emotional wave remembering the highs and lows of playing sports. A little more than three years earlier, I had been cut from the Jacksonville Jaguars. Perspective can be the easiest thing to lose and the hardest thing to gain. Each box I pried open brought back disappointment of unanswered questions from that time: Is this the moment that defines all my years of grinding, my last shot at sports? Is this what people will remember most about me?
When the last box stood bare, peace settled in my spirit. It felt like God was reminding me that He had traded what in my eyes looked like a failed plan for what was in His eyes a greater purpose. I told you what it felt like when I was cut from the Jags, but I didn’t share what happened immediately after. That moment didn’t end in disappointment; it became a launching point for something even greater.
In 2021, after nearly two decades of having boots on the ground, the United States withdrew its troops from Afghanistan, bringing an end to its military presence there. But that moment also left behind a nation and many people in crisis. Several critical and tragic events unfolded before that day, including a suicide bombing in the Kabul airport that killed 13 US service members and 170 Afghan civilians. As our foundation watched the tragedy unfold and heard firsthand accounts from our partners and friends on the ground, we felt an increasing responsibility to step in and help in any way we could.
During this crisis, I had the opportunity to fly to the Middle East and witness the chaos firsthand, to stand among those who were fighting for their lives. This all unfolded around the same time I got cut from the Jaguars. I was still raw. Mad at God and disappointed in myself. After spending time ministering in one country, I flew to a second. Somewhere on that flight, something shifted in me. Meeting brave soldiers and refugee families helped me to look again. And for the first time, I thanked God for getting cut.
- What felt like a setback was actually a setup.
If I had made the team, I never would have been available to step into that moment — to serve, to love, to fight for those who can’t fight for themselves. That’s just like God. He sees the whole picture.
Looks can be deceiving. They don’t always tell the whole story.
Think of Jesus on the cross, bloodied, battered, and seemingly defeated. To those watching, it didn’t look like a picture of hope, but of despair. But God saw beyond that moment. He knew the cross wasn’t the end of the story but the gateway to resurrection and eternal life.
What looked like loss was actually victory! That’s the power of looking again, seeing beyond the surface to what God sees.
In the same way, value isn’t always obvious at first glance. Take a red carpet — more than just fabric, to most of us it carries meaning, prestige, and a sense of purpose. But what is it that makes it so valuable?
You Can’t Roll up Worth
For centuries, the red carpet has symbolized prestige and exclusivity, its history woven through myth, high society, and Hollywood glamour. First referenced in the Greek tragedy Agamemnon (458 BCE), it was deemed fit only for gods.1 By the nineteenth century, it was in elite events and later marked luxury train travel. According to one historian, the red carpet “symbolized status, something most people had no access to.”1
Hollywood embraced the tradition in 1922, rolling it out for Robin Hood, forever linking the red carpet with stardom. By 1961, televised coverage cemented its role as the stage for entertainment’s elite, where fashion, fame, and aspiration collide at events like the Grammys, Academy Awards, and the Oscars. When it comes to the Oscars, there’s one little-known mystery: What happens to the red carpet? Weighing up to 630 pounds and requiring nine hundred hours to install, no one knows where it goes when the award show is over, other than it’s not used again.2
Every Night to Shine is a little different, depending on location, culture, and weather, but there is one thing that every NTS event must have: a red carpet. Each honored guest we serve is invited to walk, roll, or be carried on this strip of bold fabric when they arrive. The carpet is lined with volunteer paparazzi who celebrate MVP kings and queens as they make their way down. It’s one of the ways we show our guests they are important.
- They are extravagantly loved and intricately designed. They matter so much that Jesus gave His life for them. They are royalty.
The history of people with disabilities reveals the sobering truth that throughout history they have been met with fear, prejudice, and intolerance, often subjected to “infanticide, starved, burned, shunned and isolated, strangled, submerged in hot water, beaten, chained and caged, tortured, gassed, shot, sterilized, warehoused and sedated, hanged, and used as amusement.”3 Though society’s treatment, even today, may not value people with special needs, at NTS they belong on the red carpet.
Recently at the end of an NTS in Guatemala, as people were beginning to clean up glasses of water, juice, and punch; deflate balloons; and collect the leftover fidget toys and neon sunglasses our guests love, I noticed some of our volunteers wrapping up the last task. I couldn’t stop staring as they rolled up the red carpet to be cleaned, stored, and reused the next year. When they laid it to the side, I started thinking that at first glance this long piece of scarlet fabric is just carpet. There’s nothing inherently valuable or special about it. Sure, the red carpet at the Oscars costs close to $25,000, but it’s easy to find one for under a hundred bucks.4 It’s not the value of a red carpet that matters at NTS but the message it carries that holds importance. It speaks to the worth of the individuals who find themselves on it. Alongside the cheering volunteers, most of whom leave with hoarse voices at the end of the night — the red carpet shouts to our honored guests:
“God sees you!”
“You are special!”
“You are royalty!”
At the end of the night, the red carpet is removed from the swath of grass, hotel hallway, or the front entrance of a church where it was laid, as if it was never there, but the message behind it stays the same.
You can roll up a piece of fabric, but you can’t roll away the inherent worth and value of every individual who was celebrated on it — or any human being that has ever been born.
In God’s economy, every day is red carpet season.
1. Renan Botelho, “The History and Evolution of the Red Carpet: From Ancient Greece to Modern Hollywood,” Women’s Wear Daily, October 5, 2023, https://wwd.com/feature/red-carpet-history-1235839803/.
2. Elijah Chiland, “6 Things You Didn’t Know About the Oscars Red Carpet,” Curbed LA, February 26, 2017, https://la.curbed.com/2017/2/26/14745794/oscars-academy-awards-red-carpet.
3. Irmo Marini, “The History of Treatment Toward People with Disabilities,” in Psychosocial Aspects of Disability, 2nd ed., ed. Irmo Marini et al. (Springer, 2017), https://connect.springerpub.com/content/book/978-0-8261-8063-6/part/part01/chapter/ch01.
4. Smitty, “The Red Carpet at the Oscars Costs How Much?,” 101.5 WPDH, February 14, 2019, https://wpdh.com/the-red-carpet-at-the-oscars-costs-how-much/.
Excerpted with permission from Look Again by Tim Tebow, copyright Timothy R. Tebow.
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Your Turn
At this point in your life, what will people remember about you? God can take whatever “failures” and turn them into purpose! Lean into it. Like every other day, it’s red carpet season! ~ Devotionals Daily