“His vision complete. His decision validated. Even if the journey was harder than he expected.”
That’s how one ESPN writer described LeBron James after his team snapped a 52-year championship drought that had seemed like a curse over his hometown of 2 million people. But that hex was lifted after his Cleveland Cavaliers overcame a 3-1 deficit in the best of seven game series against the reigning NBA champion Golden State Warriors in what sports fans are calling “one for the ages.”
It was the first championship title for Cleveland in 52 years, ending decades of sports agony for the city.
It was the first time a team has ever come back from a 3-1 deficit to win the NBA finals.
And it marked the fruition of LeBron’s mission to bring a title to the community he grew up in.
Whether you like him or not, LeBron James did something special—something commendable. When he left Miami two years ago to return to Cleveland in pursuit of a hometown title, people said he was crazy. They said he could never do it.
“There were some people that I trusted and built relationships with in those four years [who] told me I was making the biggest mistake of my career,” said LeBron.
When asked what made this championship more special than his previous two in Miami, all LeBron could say was, “I’m home. I’m home.”
The title wait is finally over for Cleveland, and a native son helped end it.
He did it for the people he loved—the people who meant the most to him.
“The native son who arrived in fame and left in shame has returned to deliver a championship that Northeast Ohio fans went through sporting hell to receive,” wrote Jerry Brewer. “It took a homegrown prodigy to shatter the curse. It took a flawed hero to fail the first time, then leave and embarrass and anger the city and come back, older, wiser and a better winner. The James who fell short as a young adult would not be denied as a hardened man.”
The Cavaliers’ superstar ended the 2016 NBA Finals with 208 points, 79 rebounds and 62 assists. James became the third player to have a triple-double in Game 7 of the NBA Finals and his 29.7 points per game now stands as the highest scoring average by a player on the winning team in the Finals since 2010, when Kobe Bryant scored 28.6 points per game against the Celtics. All good enough to earn James his third Finals most valuable player award and fulfilling his promise of bringing Cleveland its first major professional sports champion since 1964.
He was truly a man on a MISSION.
For the series, LeBron averaged 29.7 points, 11.3 rebounds, 8.9 assists, 2.6 steals, 2.3 blocks, 4.4 turnovers, .494/.371/.721. His performances in Games 5 and 6 — both elimination games for Cleveland — earned him game scores of 39.2 and 42.5, respectively, two of the top three performances ever recorded in the NBA Finals.
“Just knowing what our city has been through, Northeast Ohio has been through, as far as our sports and everything for the last 50-plus years,” James said. “You could look back to the Earnest Byner fumble, [John] Elway going 99 yards, to Jose Mesa not being able to close out in the bottom of the ninth to the Cavs went to The Finals — I was on that team — in 2007, getting swept, and then last year us losing, 4-2. And so many more stories.”
Asked about the fans who were once upset with him, James said: “That don’t matter. That’s yesterday’s newspaper. I don’t think anybody’s reading yesterday’s newspaper. They’ll be reading tomorrow that I’m coming home. I’m coming home with what I said I was going to do.”
You may not be a LeBron fan, but his story is one that relates to all of us.
We’ve all been immature at times. We’ve all done things we’d like to forget. Like the prodigal son in Luke 15:11-32, we’ve all done embarrassing things and sometimes brought shame to those who loved us most. Yet because of God’s amazing grace, we can all come back wiser, better, and stronger. We can humble ourselves and come back to the people we’ve hurt, especially our heavenly Father, and realign ourselves with the right values, the right goals, and the pursuit of excellence for the right reasons. We can bring something special back to the people who have taken us back. We can honor them with a deeper devotion and a greater service.
All of us have the opportunity to COME HOME. We can humble ourselves when we’ve acted out of immaturity. We can accept God’s forgiveness and then forgive ourselves. We all have the opportunity to redeem the story because of God’s grace.
The Apostle Paul reminded the community at Philippi that he wasn’t perfect yet, but that he was maturing: “Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Let those of us who are mature think this way, and if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal that also to you.” (Philippians 3:13-15 ESV)
LeBron’s story reminds us that we can all overcome our past failures and press on toward the goal of our upward call in life.
If you are struggling to come home to God, click here to find out how Jesus has made it possible for you to overcome the shame of being spiritually alone. You can come home today. Your story can be rewritten in redemption!
It really doesn’t matter where LeBron goes from here with his NBA journey. These words will always describe him: His vision complete. His decision validated. Even if the journey was harder than he expected.
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