By Chad Brinker
A few days before I played my first college football game, my life changed forever. I was an 18-year-old freshman, on my own for the first time, boarding a chartered flight to Raleigh, North Carolina, with my football teammates. We had just finished training camp and were getting ready to play the Wolfpack of North Carolina State.  
As we boarded, I was reminded of my first flight. I was 8 years old and it was a flight to West Palm Beach. I went to visit my grandmother over the Christmas holiday with my parents. We were never a religious family, except for an occasional holiday, and much of my childhood was centered on sports. As I settled into my assigned seat and looked out the window, my mind drifted home.  
I grew up in a blue-collar town on the riverbanks of the Ohio about an hour southwest of Pittsburgh. What was once a booming community for coal and steel workers had become another sad depiction of a dying population in the middle of the Rust Belt. Old vacant mills lined the Ohio River as some sort of shrine. It was a constant reminder of how times have changed and how difficult life can be. This was a tough place with hard-working men. The principles of hard work, discipline, and sacrifice for the greater good was ingrained in all of us at an early age.  
Despite economic struggles and hardships, hope was kept alive every autumn on Friday nights. High school football reigns and always has in this small industrial town, more than 100 years and counting. My athletic prowess earned me a full scholarship to play college football and continue my education at Ohio University. I was the first in my family to do so. During my time at Martins Ferry High School, I learned the qualities that shaped my character. Little did I know that those were the same qualities that would one day prepare me for the conversation I was about to have with my teammate Chip Pugh on that flight to Raleigh.  
Although I had faith in God, it was a superficial faith and had no real substance. For most of my life, football had been my god. I never opened a Bible until I got to college. And when I did, I tried to shape Jesus to my own image. I wanted God to be there when I needed Him and be left alone otherwise. My faith was a sad depiction of what many today consider to be Christianity. I did not know it at the time, but my life was about to change when I sat next to Chip Pugh on that airplane.  
I had been thinking a lot about my purpose in life. A college football training camp tends to do that, especially late at night. Two-a-days, as we called them, tests your manhood. I remember having trouble falling asleep. I missed home and my family. I missed the comfort of a familiar place and faces. Back home, everybody knew my name. I was the star athlete. I was the guy who was going to make it far in life––the NFL, maybe––but for sure I would find success. There was so much pressure on me to succeed, and all I wanted to do was go home. I started to question life and what it had in store for me. Essentially, I was lost. My soul was empty and searching for meaning.  
I looked over at Chip and noticed he was wearing a WWJD bracelet. I had no idea what it meant, so I asked. I couldn’t have given Chip a better opportunity to preach the Gospel. My soul was yearning for the Truth although he did not know it at the time. Just as Phillip preached the good news about Jesus to the Ethiopian eunuch in Acts 8, so did Chip to me.  
My life was forever changed from that moment on. Chip and I built a strong friendship. We would study the Scriptures on every road trip thereafter. We also set up Bible studies at our dormitory. Later that season, I obeyed the Gospel and put on Christ in baptism for the remission of my sins (Acts 2:38). We have stayed close friends to this day and study often together, challenging one another to dig deeper into the truth of the Scriptures. As the old proverb says, “Iron sharpens iron, and one man sharpens another” (Proverbs 27:17, ESV). 
Once I became a Christian, I quickly learned that my relationship with Jesus was something that was going to need work. Like any other relationship, one with my Lord needed my time, energy, and focus. It was no different than training for the arena.  
However, I didn’t always give my relationship with Christ first priority. With school, football, and social life on campus, sometimes Jesus was left at the church building. The Bible teaches that Satan “prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour” (1 Peter 5:8). And he sure was after me. I had grown into a star athlete at Ohio, which gave me influence on campus. That influence could have been used to “renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age” (Titus 2:12). I have to admit that was not always the case for me. My studies in the sciences had me challenging the One who created me. I had questions about God that my friends struggled to answer. The temptations on campus for a young Christian were very real and powerful. I had never been the partying type, but like most colleges, Ohio offered more than just a solid education. Girls flocked campus with hardly enough clothes to cover their skin, and for whatever reason, girls are attracted to star athletes. It became hard to ignore all the attention. It was sometimes easier for me to dodge 300-pound defensive lineman than to elude the schemes of the devil. My faith stood on shaky ground, and I couldn’t get out of my own way.  
All of this changed in the fall of 2001. I was diagnosed with an arachnoid cyst a week before we played our archrival Miami (Ohio). Doctors informed me that I would need brain surgery and it was unlikely for me to step foot on the gridiron again. The news rocked me and my family. Our head football coach later said the news shocked our football team because I was seen as some invincible warrior by my teammates. I was the strongest, fastest, and hardest-working individual on the team. Toughness permeated every fiber of my being, and I started to belief that I was bulletproof. When you play in the arena that I came from, you are almost conditioned to think this way. 
I quickly found out that through this ailment that I was no match for the Divine. Our security cannot be wrapped up in the fragility of ourselves or this world. From that moment I seriously began to put Jesus first in all things. God eventually restored my health and I returned to the gridiron less than a year removed from brain surgery. I had a stellar senior season and fulfilled my dream of putting on an NFL uniform. During this time, God brought into my life a wonderful Christian woman Rachelle who would become my wife. Through many ups and downs, highs and lows, my Lord has always stuck with me and I continue to learn that conversion to Christ is not only a one-time event, but a lifelong relationship. 
We all have a story to tell, and I have so much more to say. But I did not use this space to delve into Biblical theology or some sort of insightful psychology. I wanted it to be real and from the heart. True evangelism is just that. Christ lives in all of us who are faithful members of His body; therefore, “let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in Heaven” (Matthew 5:16). How you live your life will be the greatest sermon you could ever preach. Amen.