In the first three rounds of this year’s NCAA Tournament, Davidson’s Stephen Curry absolutely torched teams, averaging 34.3 points per game and leading his team to their first Regional Championship since 1969. Though Kansas defeated Curry and the tenacious Davidson team in the Elite Eight, the Wildcats will still go down as the Cinderella team of 2008.

It was only two years ago that Curry was overlooked by several other schools whose seasons ended long before Davidson’s. Curry was a scrawny, 6-1, 155-pound senior, considered too small and frail to handle the physical play of the AAC and SEC. Many major Division I coaches could not get past his physique. But one coach, Bob McKillop, looked beneath the physical appearance and saw the heart of a champion.

After their win over Wisconsin, Curry was asked if he was motivated to show all the coaches who turned him down that he could play at this level. Curry quietly replied, “I am self-motivated. I am motivated to play for my teammates and for God.”  What a good lesson for us all. We need to understand that what is impossible for man is not impossible for God.

Curry’s story reminds me of another young man who was overlooked years ago. In 1 Samuel 16, Samuel was commissioned by God to go and anoint the second king of Israel. He was led to the home of Jesse the Bethlehemite, where God said he would find the one whom God Himself had chosen. When Samuel looked upon Eliab, he thought he’d found his man, based on Eliab’s appearance. But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not look at his appearance or his physical nature, because I have refused him. For the Lord does not see as man sees; for man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart” (1 Samuel 16:7 NKJV). Eventually, the youngest son was brought before him, and the Lord instructed Samuel to anoint him. And sometime later, as David stood over the defeated body of Goliath, I can imagine Samuel must have felt the same confirmation in his heart that Coach McKillop felt seeing Curry lead Davidson deep into this year’s tournament. 

Today, let’s remember that God has chosen the “weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty” (1 Corinthians 1:27). As David said before he slew Goliath, “All…shall know that the Lord does not save with sword and spear, for the battle is the Lord’s” (1 Samuel 17:47).