We carry disappointments:  Life takes its toll.  If we lack a right perspective, disappointments and setbacks accumulate over time and can cause depression and an inability to have hope for the future.  Franciscan author Richard Rohr put it this way, “Until we walk with despair, and still have hope, we will not know that our hope was not just hope in ourselves, in our own successes, in our power to make a difference, in our image of what perfection should be. We need hope from a much deeper Source. We need a hope larger than ourselves.”… “This very journey is probably the heart of what Jesus came to reveal.”  I agree that when it comes to processing disappointments it is more about where you process them than how you process them.

What’s all this Resistance?
As we work our way through the red-zone we will encounter resistance.  In football, it comes in the form of 300 pound linemen who are determined to push us back.  In life it comes in four forms: 

• We carry disappointments
• We are tired and believe we deserve a rest
• We have lost vision        
• We have enemies

These are all serious conditions so let us investigate them one at a time.

Every Yard is Gained with Difficulty
Even with leverage the way forward is not easy.  Nothing meaningful and significant has ever come easily to me and I suspect the same is true for you.  Any large goal whether in business, family or marriage comes at a price.  In an interview, the late Steve Jobs, speaking about passion, said he would have never accomplished much at Apple unless he had been passionate about it.  Personally, I have found that passion is an inward drive that tells me what I “must do.”  It is the energy that gets me back up when I fail in an attempt to accomplish something meaningful.  Equally important to leverage, passion is an essential component in penetrating the red-zone.

Prepared for the Red-Zone 
At a recent seminar the presenter talked about how life can prepare us to have our greatest impact in our second half.  What he presented I have put in the form of a mathematical equation: Raw Ability + Gained Wisdom + Influence or Position = Leverage.  Raw ability is the gifts and talents we are born with.  Gained wisdom is what we learn over the course of our life.  Influence or position is the recognition by others that we are competent.  Added together we get leverage.  Leverage is our total-self which is expressed in our increased ability to influence and bring about change.  I would argue that leverage is one of our greatest asset in successfully penetrating the red-zone.

Your Secret Weapon in the Red-Zone
Football offers a good analogy that is relevant to life.  In football, the “red-zone” is where you are about to score a touchdown, but gaining additional yardage is harder.  When you are in the red-zone, you are somewhere between your opponents 20 yard line and the end zone.  You have marched your team as far as 80 yards down the field.  You can see, feel and taste the end zone.  For the average professional team, 50% of the time they will not make it through the red-zone and make a touchdown.

Why is it possible to make it successfully 80 yards and not the final 20 yards?  The reason is that in the red-zone the opposing team has a distinct advantage.  They now only have to defend 10 yards of the end-zone and from one to 20 yards of the playing field.  This short field gives them added resources to put up resistance.  That increased short-field resistance is what makes the pathway through the red-zone so difficult.