[Warning: Spoilers Ahead]
American Underdog is based on the inspiring true story of Kurt Warner (Zachary Levi)—a small-town Iowan dreamer who went from jobless, past-ripened NFL prospect to Super Bowl MVP and Hall of Fame quarterback. This movie also recounts the unlikely love story of Kurt and Brenda Warner (Anna Paquin), and Kurt’s personal journey in humility, faithfulness, and rest in Christ.
While not marketed explicitly as a faith-based film, the movie contains several references to Kurt and Brenda’s Christian faith, and it boasts a number of valuable life lessons about God’s purposes in our hardships. Below are three of them.
1. God often displays his power more through our supermarket moments than our Super Bowl moments (cf. 2 Cor. 12:9).
One of the most powerful parts of Warner’s story—perhaps even more powerful than his Super Bowl victory itself—is when he hits “rock bottom,” when his lifelong dream of playing in the NFL comes to a crashing halt and he takes a job bagging groceries at a supermarket. The significance of this moment transcends Warner’s financial challenges; it symbolizes the end of an era—the end of a lifelong dream. By most accounts, Warner’s biggest aspirations were dashed, and everything Warner had worked for up to this point seemed to be for naught.
In an interview with People Magazine, Warner confesses both the difficulty and the unoriginality of this moment:
Most people have their “supermarket moment,” where they find themselves in a place they don’t want to be. They don’t know how they got there [and] they gotta do what they gotta do while they’re waiting for the next step.
For Warner, faithfulness in this moment meant setting aside his football dreams and working the graveyard shift to put food on the table. So, humbling as it was, that’s what he did.
While Warner enjoyed many glamorous moments in the years ahead, it’s this moment that many people remember and cite—it’s this moment that makes his story unique. Warner’s faithfulness in the midst of seemingly shattered dreams makes his successes shine all the more brightly.
Oftentimes it’s how we respond after being cut from the team—not how we respond after winning the Super Bowl—that people remember. It’s in moments of suffering that we have an opportunity to put the hope of the gospel on display in a uniquely powerful way (see Psalm 119:74-75).
2. God often transforms our greatest challenges into our greatest missional tools.
Arguably the biggest hero of American Underdog is Zach—Brenda’s blind son who repeatedly defies all odds (and continues to defy all odds to this day). Zach suffered a traumatic head injury as a baby, and his diagnosis was grim. If he survived, it was likely he would never be able to walk or talk again. Yet, miraculously, Zach not only survived, but he went on to live a walking, talking, and contagiously happy life (although he was never able to regain his vision).
Brenda powerfully recounts the first moment Zach and Kurt “saw” each other: “In a weird way—[Zach] being blind—it was love at first sight.”
As any parent of a child with disabilities knows, parenthood is one of both incomparable challenges and incomparable joy. Yet the unrivaled challenges that Zach and his family have faced have borne unimaginable fruit. In addition to the millions of people who have been impacted by Zach’s story through American Underdog (and through Kurt and Brenda Warner’s book), Zach’s victorious life also inspired Kurt and Brenda to open up Treasure House in 2018 — a supportive living community that has helped dozens of young adults with cognitive and developmental disabilities. You can learn more about Treasure House here.
The Warner family offered one of their greatest challenges to God with open hands, and God used it to bring life-changing blessings to countless others. Is it possible that God wants to use your biggest challenge in life to serve others, too?
3. God intends for us to live from a place of being loved, not to earn his love.
In a memorable dialogue and watershed moment, Brenda’s father asks Kurt, “Do you love her (Brenda)?”
Kurt replies, “Yes sir. I do.”
“I knew you did. Do you mind me asking you what’s holding you up [from marrying her]?”
After a moment of reflection, Kurt says, “I guess I just felt like I needed to prove myself first. Show her I was capable of doing what I set out to do. Be worthy of her.”
In one sense, Kurt’s words epitomize the way many people feel about God’s love. We live as if the gospel is that God accepts us once we prove ourselves worthy of him. Of course, this is the exact opposite of the gospel. Brenda’s father provides a helpful corrective in response:
“Hell, Kurt. Accomplishing one thing or the other is not what’s going to make you worthy of her. Life is not about what you achieve; it’s about what you can become.”
God intends to refine you into the masterpiece that he created you to be (cf. Ephesians 2:10) — but he is not waiting until you’re perfect to start loving you. As the Apostle Paul says in Romans 5:8, “God shows his love for us in this: while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”
Don’t miss the promise here: God loves you now—even while you are still a sinner. While other lovers say, “Earn my love by proving your worth,” Christ says, “I have proven my love by earning your worth.”
Applying These Lessons
Let’s strive for faithfulness in our supermarket moments. Let’s keep our eyes open for ways that God might want to transform our challenges into missional tools. And let’s rest from our tireless efforts to earn God’s love—living instead from a place of being eternally loved and accepted through Christ’s finished work on the cross.
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Read “Why Free Guy (Ryan Reynolds) Tugs at Our Heart Strings” here.
Read “Three Powerful Quotes from The Most Reluctant Convert (C.S. Lewis)” here.
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