Kirk Cousins: Living as an Ambassador for Christ

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Our number is 800-A-FAMILY or visit focusonthefamily.com slash gift. NFL quarterback Kirk Cousins shares about one of the driving principles in his life. And so that's when he again reiterated Proverbs 3, 5 and 6. Trust in the Lord with all your heart. Don't lean on your understanding.

My understanding said that I couldn't play college football but don't lean on your understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him. Trust Him.

Walk with Him and He will direct your steps. And so my job was to trust and obey and it was God's job to steer the ship. Kirk is our featured guest today on Focus on the Family and shares more inspiration about being a disciple of Jesus Christ.

This is Focus on the Family with your host Focus President and author Jim Daly and I'm John Fuller. John Kirk Cousins is an incredibly humble man and he's all about living his life in a purposeful and focused way. He's a Pro Bowl quarterback, plays for the Minnesota Vikings and some of you might know unfortunately we were sad to hear that he was injured in a game last week.

So pray for Kirk to have that speedy recovery. He either holds or is tied for several NFL records. He's very accomplished. Football is a big part of his life and he wants to be the best player he can be and that's great.

But his ultimate goal in life is so much bigger. It's about serving the Lord, his family and others that he can help. He and his wife Julie have two sons and his dad Don is the lead pastor at Discovery Church in Orlando, Florida. Not long ago we recorded Kirk's story in front of a live audience at that church and it was very inspiring. I wasn't able to be there so I asked our very talented Chief Operating Officer Ken Windemank to step in and record this with Kirk Cousins. By the way our friend Ray Vanderlaan from That the World May Know.

We've been doing that series for over 25 years. It will be mentioned and Kirk Cousins went to his high school Holland Christian School. He was Kirk's teacher and really has continued to be a spiritual mentor for Kirk Cousins. Yeah and you'll hear about that as we go along and Ray Vanderlaan has partnered with Focus on the Family to release a new video series. It's called RVL Discipleship The Study.

It's phenomenal and you can learn more by clicking the link in the program notes or when you call 800 the letter A and the word family. Here now is Ken Windemank with Kirk Cousins from a men's event in Orlando on Focus on the Family. Kirk thanks for joining me and congratulations on the 2023 Bart Starr Award for outstanding character and leadership in the home, on the field and in the community. That is that's some accolade. Well thank you. It was a meaningful award. You certainly play the game for team awards but of the individual awards I've had the chance to even be considered for that one it carries the most meaning because of what it stands for.

Right without a doubt. I don't know if you know but there's a lot of similarities between you and me. You know so I grew up in the suburbs of New York. You grew up in the suburbs of Chicago. I'm a middle child.

You're a middle child. I play quarterback in high school. You play quarterback in high school. You aspire to be an NFL quarterback. I aspire to be an NFL quarterback.

How'd that work out for you? You're in incredible shape and that's where everything ends right about there. So it didn't work out but I had a great time in sports.

No doubt. Now when you were a toddler you had an accident that maybe jeopardized your sports career and playing sports. What happened?

Tell us about that. Yeah I was about 18 months old and just one of those freak accidents at the home where there's boiling water and I got a hold of it and poured it on myself not knowing what I was doing and when you pour boiling water on you have clothes on. My mom came running over. My shirt was stuck to my skin. She goes to pull my shirt off and my skin comes off with it and I'm screaming and my mom calls 911 and they take me away in an ambulance and I thankfully have no memory of it but I was in the hospital for two weeks and they had to do a daily process to help with the healing of the skin where I would go sit in a warm bath and obviously when you have severely burned skin and you're sitting in water it's extremely painful and so I was screaming and my parents had to just kind of hold me through that for two weeks and thankfully a lot of the scarring is gone. It's just a couple spots in my arm here and here that where the scarring is permanent but it's very interesting because when my parents left the hospital after two weeks the doctor said no long-term implication. Obviously cosmetically there might be some implication but nothing functionally except he will have some limited movement in his shoulders which to this day is still where the most significant scarring is around my armpits and they said for example that could hurt him in terms of like throwing a ball and so it was very interesting that that was the thought coming away from that but obviously that was not the case and I could throw a football just fine so very very grateful for that and if there is a silver lining to it which I think there is we believe to this day that maybe those two weeks of going through those painful process to help heal may have helped toughen me up in some way shape or form because to this day football requires a high pain threshold and pain tolerance and an ability to push through physical pain and while I don't like doing it it would seem that there's an ability there and we wonder if maybe that experience was what maybe raised my pain threshold. You know I think we can look in the news today and a lot of a lot of young people are struggling with identity and issues of who they are and what is the message that you would carry to young people today in that regard pushing through and embracing those things in your life that are difficult. Well it can be very easy to wrap your identity up into what you do how you look what people think of you and if you do that in my job you don't get too far because someday football you're going to retire your skills are going to decline and you're constantly under criticism from media and fans rarely are people saying nice things about you over and over it tends to be criticism and nitpicking and so that comes with the job and so if you're waiting for people to tell you your you know good things about you and have this everything go right in your career in my job you're going to wait in a long time right to have your identity wrapped up in something that's going to make you feel good. So for me it was a lesson I learned long ago I threw an interception in a college game at Notre Dame and I remember it was an interception that cost our team the game we lost the game because I threw the interception and I got hit on the play so I landed hard into the turf and I remember walking picking myself up off the turf walking off the field listening to the deafening sound of 80,000 people in the stadium cheering my failure right because it was a away game and I'm pulling a clump of grass out of my helmet because I got hit into the turf so hard and I'm thinking life isn't too good right now right but another thought was if I had built my life on football and that was where my identity was I'm in trouble right now because football just crumbled and I thought thank you for the gospel and thank you god that my life is not built on football right but my life's built on you and you're not changing right and so I can throw an interception and be pulling turf grass out of my helmet and have to go face questions from the media in 10 minutes that are going to ask why are you so dumb right and I can face all that knowing that god's not changing god saw this event before it happened he's sovereign over it he allowed it to happen and I have to trust him that he's going to make good out of it he's not going to waste it right and when you have that as your underlying comfort and peace and foundation of your life it goes back to the words of Jesus and Matthew where he says you're building your house on rock and the storm is going to come you're going to throw interceptions they might lose you games but the house won't fall apart right it'll be standing on the rock and so for me I'm grateful that my life is built on the rock I don't want the storms to come but when they do we've got the right foundation well obviously a lot of people have spoken into your life and built that into your life your family being one of them talk a little bit about your family life growing up and and what your parents poured into you in that regard and you go to building that foundation and that outlook in life yeah my parents did a great job first of all modeling what it would look like to follow Jesus they didn't push us or force the bible on us I felt like it was something that was caught and taught and it was just a natural thing to want to follow their path that they had laid out you know my dad taught a scripture from a young age and brought up proverbs 3 5 and 6 you know to trust the lord with all your heart to not lean on your understanding and all your ways to acknowledge him and he will direct your steps and he taught us galatians 6 7 you know which says do not be deceived god is not mocked whatever a man sows this he will also reap and he talked about the importance of being a great decision maker and knowing that there are consequences to the choices you make in life good or bad and if you sow good things you'll reap good things but if you sow poor decisions you'll reap poor decisions and so you know the truth of god's word was evident in the home and whether it was my mom or my dad it was very clear what it would look like to follow Jesus what it would look like to shine a light to other people in your school and on your sports teams and it was a passion of theirs that we really caught that's great let's turn to high school sometimes can be difficult years you played quarterback at holland christian and we have a common friend in ray vandalon i don't know if you have all heard that the world may know at focus on the family it's a great series that we've done with ray for 30 years incredible biblical teaching incredible biblical scholar i've learned a lot from him at my time at focus on the family i was able to go to israel with him i know you did as well talk a little bit about what stands out from his teaching in the classroom you know sometimes it can be very academic in the classroom but you know my times with ray and personally there's something about his teaching that moves you out of the classroom from an academic standpoint right into walking like jesus walked i mean that's i took two classes with ray my sophomore year high school was life of jesus and that was a semester and uh he just made the bible and the life of jesus just come to life he's just a gifted teacher he is unbelievable storyteller and uh he brought so much truth out of the scriptures that i never realized or knew were there even growing up in a home where we were around the bible all the time and then my senior year i took a course called discipleship where he talked about it's one thing to be a fan of jesus it's another thing to be a fully devoted follower right and he talked about the definition of being a disciple is to be a fully devoted follower and he challenged us to understand that that meant following jesus even if it cost you something right so if culture goes this way and jesus went this way if you're a disciple you got to go this way even if it costs you something and so i i felt from his challenging teachings in high school and through some of the experiences i've had in sports i just drove a stake in the ground late in high school that i'm going to be a fully devoted follower even if it cost me something and uh i'm going to trust him and build my life on on his truth and uh you know through those ups and downs and the roller coaster of life it makes all the difference and so um ray's teaching was a was a foundational impact on my life now you had a moment in high school where you had something that occurred to you that again put your sports career in jeopardy yeah um tell us what happened yeah so i uh and i joke with nfl players to this day that i did not play varsity football until my junior year most pro football players probably were good enough as a freshman or sophomore to get pulled up to the varsity that was not the case for me i played freshman football as a freshman jv as a sophomore and then my first varsity game was my junior year and in the very first quarter the very first varsity game i ever played which was a dream come true for me to be a quarterback at my high school on the varsity team i got hit on my left side in that first quarter and broke my left ankle and the doctor put the cast on my ankle and told me i was likely done for the season if i did come back i wouldn't really be the same player and i remember driving home from the hospital with tears in my eyes and calling my dad and saying dad it's broken i'm out for the year now i won't get recruited and by the time i get to my senior year assuming i have a good year who knows if that will happen all the good schools will have already found their guy and i won't get an opportunity and my dad said kirk you don't know that but even if it doesn't happen even if you don't get a scholarship and football does go south because of this injury you have to trust god's plan for your life and you have to believe that he has a plan and so that's when he again reiterated proverbs three five and six trust the lord with all your heart don't lean on your understanding my understanding said that i couldn't play college football but don't lean on your understanding and all your ways acknowledge him trust him walk with him and he will direct your steps and so my job was to trust and obey and it was god's job to steer the ship and i decided in that moment okay that'll be my life first and i'm gonna truly live that i'm gonna trust and obey him even when it's hard and i don't feel like it and we'll see where he wants to steer the ship it might not be football but let's let him steer the ship not me and i'm not going to worry about it and a year and a half later i was signing a scholarship to go to michigan state which would have been my dream school all along and it was just a moment where i could look back and say god is so much bigger than not only a broken ankle but bigger than the circumstances we see in our lives the key is that through those circumstances we trust him obey him and give those circumstances over to him you've mentioned your dad several times and that's that's quite moving that you can pick up the phone have that relationship with your father and your heavenly father you know you see both of those things in your life you know a year and a half is a long time to come back from an ankle injury was there any specific moment that you really felt like i don't know if i can do this during that time did your dad speak life into you is there any any moments yeah i think time and again my dad has spoken belief in me i mean to this day i'll have a poor game and i'll inevitably call him on my way back from the game or when we get home and he always has a way of communicating glass half full yeah you know but yeah those were bad throws but think about the good throws you had and and these moments and so there are a lot of times where he can help me write my perspective and so for me as i look at our society and i think about how can we fix societal issues obviously the first thing i go to is the gospel but to the degree that the gospel will be pushed back on i then go to dads we need dads to be dads and we need men to lead and fathers to lead i just see too many times i look around our locker room teammate stories where there was just no dad present in their life and if the dad was present he really wasn't a dad right as i define a dad and and when i think back on the role that my dad played if he had just been removed from the picture i would have been lost right and so when i look at bigger issues in society i keep seeing politicians give speeches and i say why are we not talking about dads we need dads to be dads and we have so many who aren't and it's hard i'm a dad and i'm learning just how hard it is and so i can see why people are tapping out and saying i don't want to do this but we have to press in and lead because i go back to so many issues stemming from well where was the father and what was the role he was playing right all right you're let's turn a corner you're off to college okay and statistically we know that a lot of young people lose their faith in college they walk away from christ it's a moment that many parents christian parents they're excited about launching their kids off into university but some are nervous about that you obviously had a great a great foundation but talk to us a little bit about being at michigan state and what maybe tested your faith and how you how you stayed strong in your faith and who you pulled in around you i remember as i left for michigan state um listening to some message tapes on the book of daniel and it so paralleled what it's like to be a freshman in college you know daniel was plucked from israel was placed in babylon he was identified as someone with abilities and so they wanted to brainwash him and and take the israel part out of him and make sure he became like the babylonians and have him forget all that he was raised to be and become someone else and daniel was aware of that and wasn't going to do it if it meant disobeying god and so he stood his ground and said i'm i'm not going to cross these lines uh because it would mean i would have to go against my conscience and disobey god and god honored that right and so for me i i just felt going to michigan state i was raised a certain way i knew there were going to be all kinds of temptations in college and it was going to be important that i stand my ground and say even if it costs me something i'm not going to do that and um god provided the grace to be able to do that he also provided people around me so i wasn't alone you know it wasn't the whole locker room but there were four or five guys that i could do life with where i didn't feel like i was alone and i think god does provide those people for us and college was really a key moment where okay you're leaving your home you now have to stand on your own you talked about being a fully devoted follower in high school it sounded good but now the boots are hitting the ground do you really want to do that and um and so my freshman year sophomore year college were really impactful years to be able to drive that stake deeper in the ground and say no i've built my life on the truth of god's word that's the playbook for my life and i'm not going to deviate even if it might make me look strange to my right peers in college you've talked about three big decisions you need to make in your life your master your mate and your mission tell us about those well certainly you know the most important decision you can make in life is to bend the knee at the cross and give your life to jesus and give your sin to jesus and trust him and so that's who's going to be your master what are you going to build your life for and then your mate being your spouse those of us who are who are going to get married or are married you understand the importance of the marriage relationship and and how it pictures christ in the church and and how we become you know that message to our world and so who you're going to marry is is a big decision and uh and then certainly what you're going to do in life uh for your occupation for your calling is a big deal and so when you get those three decisions right you set yourself up well in life for a lot of success and if you get one of those three decisions wrong you can enter into a lot of challenges yeah a lot of chaos potentially so let's turn to uh the nfl it's uh again there's a spotlight on you everything you say everything you do in the news it's difficult managing your faith and being in the locker room talk to us about how you approach your teammates how you approach the locker room with your faith and how you do that every single day day in and day out and hopefully we can take that back to our workplace to our school i think it's important to first of all walk the walk so if i sit here with you and talk about being somebody and then i'm not that person on a day-to-day basis i've lost any effectiveness for shining a light or sharing the gospel so i need to be the person that i'd like to think i am first of all and walk the walk but then um i think it's important to really lead and invest in teammates lives so that they know that i care a great deal about their success on the football field not just my own and then from there you certainly want to use opportunities to share your faith and you want them to be natural and not forced and you know but you certainly try to take advantage of those opportunities when they present themselves right you know one of the things i learned from ray on the trip was this idea of taking the kingdom back one inch at a time yes and sometimes i think we we think we need to do big things right it's it's great to be able to do those things you have an incredible platform to be able to really kind of move the needle in people's lives with you know who you are and what the lord has afforded you but what i think when i think of the locker room i think of that comes to my mind is say one inch at a time it's a good word really being intentional about the guys that are across from you and paying attention to them i agree i think i think it is inch by inch and if we expect big things we'll get discouraged yeah i think we do have to almost expect it to be inch by inch and then allow god to do those big things from time to time but um the expectation should be that just daily faithfulness of shining our light being bold uh even if it is just inches is faithfulness and obedience to god being in an environment that you're in it's you know it's entertainment you know in the nfl it's a great sport i've loved it all my life uh but it can be a very secular environment a very difficult environment like you said earlier a lot of temptations that as you enter into you know in college and i think even more so in the nfl talk to me share with us how you strengthen your faith what routine do you go through what are the daily things that you do to make sure that you're that you're not just coasting well to this day god has always provided a remnant so there's a half dozen guys in every locker room i've been in that walk with god and that i can do life with so you never are in total isolation i think it's important to find those people in your area of life so that you don't feel like you're alone understanding it won't be the majority likely and we so we have a chapel gathering saturday nights before games which is a real positive time closest thing that we have to a church service being that we're playing on sundays and then on monday night we have a couple's bible study on uh tuesday i try to take a sabbath which is a real spiritual thing for me to truly take the day off rest and trust god that if i'm not in the building working he can do more with six days than i can do with seven and so tuesday becomes a real spiritual experience for me to just rest and trust him and then uh we also have on thursday morning a prayer gathering with teammates just before the workday starts because we just feel like we need to begin our work week we need to begin our work week or our work day in prayer and give it over to the lord and not begin it in pride where we think we have all the answers and don't need to pray so um it's important for me to just always be in the word be in prayer and be in community with other believers let's let's end on this on this question uh i got a phone call from another mutual friend not till a few years back talking about a piece of artwork that was really important to you yeah and that the world may know series i have to be honest with you when i had heard what you wanted to do with that painting i'm getting choked up now yeah having young boys it was moving yeah to think about that talk to us about about that piece of artwork what you've done with it yeah and what's your intention for your boys so so ray uh when he went to ray vander lon when he would lead israel trips focused on the family commissioned a artist to do drawings paintings of bible scenes so that when ray talked about the bible scene they could cut to a visual of that bible scene drawn by someone and ray was able to speak over the drawings that it was accurate to what is believed would have been the look of the image in bible times and those images have you know moved on and they're you know pretty much you don't see them as much anymore but i had an a vision in my head of a few different bible scenes but one of them being uh david before he faces goliath and uh in my head there was this image that i remember seeing from one of ray's teachings where david is standing there with a sling and five smooth stones and he's in that valley and he's about to fight goliath but he hasn't killed him yet and goliath is standing there you know however many feet from him with the armor bearer there with goliath and i call it kind of the moment before the moment where you've got this decision am i really going to do this and put all my my livelihood out there on the line or am i going to shrink back right and um i wanted that that picture and so i reached out and i said you know do you still have that and so you were able to get me the original which is deeply meaningful to me and so now i now have that original painting over my uh fireplace in my office at home and for me it's just a reminder of what it has been like for me and moving forward to walk with jesus that i've got to stand there looking at goliath and say i'm doing this and even if i die i die i'm going to trust uh him and not trust my instincts but trust his word and so i always say that you know once you make that decision standing there with goliath right in front of you and you're holding the stones and you make the decision to do it then it's easy from there but it's in that moment are you going to retreat in fear or are you going to keep going forward in faith and that painting will always remind me of that the moment before the moment what a great way to end our time together we so appreciate you your faith your stand we pray for you as um as you play for you and your family what the lord has ahead for you let's let's thank kirk cousins thank you jim that was a really fun and engaging conversation that our coo ken windbank had with kirk cousins at that live event and boy you can't help but admire kirk's love for the lord and his heart for ministry well it comes through in everything he does whether in the locker room as we heard or in public his public stance for the lord he's all about being a christ follower and we learned how his dad and ray vander lon have helped shape his life boy mentoring is so important we all need fathers and mentors to guide us we mentioned at the top of the program that ray has a new video series called rvl discipleship it's a digital series that you can get exclusively through focus on the family you can't get it anywhere else the rvl discipleship study is a four-part series which gives you the tools to change how you experience scripture and view your role as a disciple of jesus it can change how you live and interact with your family friends in the culture it's all digital and the first season includes 10 episodes about 15 minutes each and they're great to use in small group study or with your family as part of the family devotional or as an individual visit the website to get all the details for this incredible rvl discipleship study i can't encourage you enough gene and i will be doing it along with you you won't be disappointed i'd agree and you'll find all the information you need including a link to a free preview episode in the program notes let me encourage you to come alongside others to give families hope through your support of focus on the family your gifts help us to do invaluable ministry to reach the lost and to encourage believers on a daily basis and 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