Our Paths Are Often Teachers, Not Destinations

​In a recent article, Riley Leonard, quarterback of the Notre Dame football team, wrote about his experience after losing to Northern Illinois early in the year. It was arguably one of Notre Dame's most embarrassing losses ever, and it was inarguably Leonard's poor performance that played a huge role in that defeat.

Leonard wrote about asking a police officer to drive him home immediately after the game so he didn't have to face people.

He wrote about going to class the following Monday dressed in all black, a hoodie strategically pulled down to hide his face.

He wrote about being as down on himself as he'd ever been.

Then he wrote about walking into the locker room for practice that Monday afternoon after the loss. A couple of the younger guys on the team confronted him. They said, you talk about this giant faith you have in God, yet right now you don't even have faith in yourself. How are we supposed to follow you the football player or you the man of faith?

In that moment, Leonard said, he felt like we was being identified as a hypocrite. And in that moment, Leonard said, he decided that was not the identity he wanted in life.

Notre Dame has won 12 straight games since that loss. They are one of the final four teams left in the college football playoff. No one would have logically predicted this outcome after that loss to Northern Illinois.

Riley Leonard's performance has been largely responsible for the turn of events. Yet, it's not the football that Leonard says he's most grateful for in this turn of fortunes, even as the football zealots in South Bend and beyond now mistake him for Touchdown Jesus himself. Instead, Leonard says, he is most grateful for all he's been able to learn about himself.

I have declared that my words for 2025 are break through.

Sometimes we miss the chance to break through in our lives because when the paths twist in ways that make us look and feel defeated, we fail to stop and ask, what can I learn about myself on this twisted path?

Sometimes we miss the chance to break through in our life because we allow circumstances to break us when they were supposed to be teaching us how to break through circumstances in the future.

Leonard's story is a great reminder to me as I pursue my chances to break through this year, a reminder that those chances might not come looking like victory right away.

In fact, they may come hidden under a black hoodie.

Antonio Machado says, "We make the road by walking."

That Monday afternoon before practice, when the younger guys confronted Leonard, they were basically asking him, are you going to let this road make you, or are you going to keep walking in a way that will help us make the road?"

We will all be faced with that question at some point in the future. Likely the near future.

Are you going to let this twisted path make you, or are you going to learn something, keep walking, and break through this twisted path and land in your breakthrough.

Leonard said there are easier ways to get to the other side of the world than digging, but sometimes digging is where you learn the most.

Digging.

Breaking through.

Maybe they are one in the same.