The Consequence of a Life
What is the consequence of a life?
Unfortunately, our world was collectively awakened to that question a few weeks ago when the news unfolded that Kobe Bryant and eight others were tragically killed in a helicopter crash in southern California.
Kobe Bryant is gone, yet the consequences of his life live on.
Stories continue to pour in from all over the world about Kobe. Funny stories, tragic stories, stories about family, stories about his legacy on the basketball court, and stories beyond it.
Everyone has a Kobe story.
ESPN anchor Elle Duncan broke our hearts when she revealed the fatherhood of Kobe and his pride in being the dad of four girls, saying that he died doing what he most loved, “being a girl Dad.”
NBA forward, Blake Griffin inspired our hearts, when he showed the crazy competitive worker of Kobe Bryant and the mamba mentality that he encapsulated, “saying that the first night of USA Basketball Camp in Las Vegas, Kobe went on a 40 mile bike ride through the desert. Griffin says. ‘Forty miles? At night? In the desert? You think it’s true?’ My favorite part about Kobe is you just assume the story is true. You don’t even question it. Turns out. The story was true.”
An undisclosed woman (Kobe’s accuser of alleged sexual assault in Colorado in 2003, that was dropped, but later settled in a civil suit) hurt our hearts, when she reminded us of the hidden life of Kobe and the potential monster that lurked beneath the surface. She thought that the “death of Kobe might bring closure to her sexual assault, but somehow it hadn’t. Somehow, it only made the assault seem more permanent.”
What are we to make of all these stories, but to realize we are much more than the life we live? Of this, Kobe was more aware than most. He knew not only what his life meant for himself, but also what his life meant for others. In all these stories, the word legacy keeps popping up. Yet, the word consequence might be better suited.
After a devastating Achilles injury at the end of Kobe’s 17th season in the NBA, “He became obsessed with the legend of Achilles, the warrior from Greek mythology who chose a short life that would be remembered for eternity over a long life of little consequence.” Kobe was a man of obvious consequence. His actions moved the world; sometimes for better, as seen in the smiles of his daughters, and sometimes for worse, as seen in the evidence complied from the Colorado sexual assault case.
In ways that seem obvious to us, Kobe Bryant was larger than life.
But in ways that might not seem as obvious, you are larger than life too.
As much as we would like to believe, we are not our own. Our lives ripple out, echoing into the lives and world around us. One of the great tragedies of life is that we don’t realize the consequences of our lives until we are reaping those consequences. It’s not until we are alone, that we realize that we never made time for those we love. It’s not until we are empty, that we realize that we have looked for fulfillment in all the wrong places. It’s not until we experience guilt and regret, that we begin looking back on our lives; reevaluating the way we should have lived.
It needs to be noted that during his life Kobe found peace in returning to his Catholic faith. In an interview with ESPN anchor Stephen A. Smith in 2006, “Bryant was asked what he had learned from the incident in Colorado. Bryant replied, ‘God is great.’ Pressed by Smith that ‘everyone knows that,’ Bryant added, ‘You can know it all you want, but until you have to pick up that cross that you can’t carry and he picks it up for you and carries you and the cross, then you know.’”
It can be devastating to realize that our lives have consequences. It can be everything to realize that Jesus’s life has consequences for us:
“For if, because of one man’s trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ. Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men. For as by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous.
(Romans 5:17-19)
What is the consequence of your life?
Our lives have consequences, but so does Jesus’s.
May the consequences of your life be overwhelmed with the consequences of Jesus’s.
Kobe Bean Bryant.
August 23, 1978 – January 26, 2020.
Thank you for making me want to be a better person and an even better Dad.
Rest in peace.