God's Coaching #9

God's Coaching #9

Nobody brings the saying “like a hot knife through butter” to life better than Ali Bahcetepe. If you’ve ever heated up a knife and cut into butter or warmed up a scoop and dipped it into ice cream, you know how easily the warm knife or scoop glides through.

Well, Ali wasn’t interested in food. Instead of taking a knife through butter, he took his hands and sliced through concrete blocks.

On January 9, 2009, Ali smashed 888 concrete blocks in one minute. That means he broke nearly 15 of them every second! Fifteen a second! (That fact is so amazing, it’s worth reading twice.)

People who witnessed this feat on a cold morning in Madrid, Spain, said that the Turkish martial-arts expert made it look easy. Dressed in simple white with a black belt around his waist, Ali stared at 1,020 blocks. They were lined up in stacks of 10 on either side of him. His hands were wrapped with tape, and a towel was draped over each stack to protect him from the rough concrete. When the timer began, Ali stepped forward, drove both hands down and crushed the first two stacks of blocks. His hands continued to work like two jackhammers, breaking 20 blocks with every “Hiya!” When one minute had expired, 888 blocks lay in pieces, and Ali had set a new world record.

What’s the Score?

Breaking nearly 900 blocks in one minute is an amazing feat of strength. The Bible contains many stories of people accomplishing phenomenal deeds. Judges 13–16 tells the story of Samson.

Samson ripped apart a lion with his bare hands, killed 1,000 men with the jawbone of a donkey, and carried massive city gates (that probably weighed 1,000 pounds) 38 miles up the side of a mountain. How was he able to do such awesome acts? The Bible is clear—the Spirit of the Lord.

God gave Samson the power to do things nobody had seen before. But when Samson disobeyed God by letting his hair be cut, God’s power left him. However, after he was captured, Samson prayed to God to strengthen him one last time so he could bring down the temple of his enemy’s false god (Judges 16:28). God gave him the strength to topple two huge stone pillars that supported the temple.

On the Ball

God’s power can help you do amazing things. Pray and ask God to give you the power to accomplish things that will honor him.

Coach’s Comment

Samson prayed to the LORD, “Sovereign LORD, remember me again. O God, please strengthen me just one more time.” Judges 16:28