Review of Tim Tebow’s Through My Eyes

I am not a Tim Tebow hater. Nor am I a Tim Tebow fanatic. To be com­pletely trans­par­ent, I’m not even some­one who fol­lows sports all that much. Nonethe­less, I wanted to read about Tim Tebow, because of his pop­u­lar­ity, con­tro­ver­sial sta­tus, Chris­t­ian faith, and all the acco­lades from Tebow­ing evan­gel­i­cals. What fol­lows is not as much a “review” of his book as it is some reflec­tions upon an inter­est­ing read.

The Good in Tim Tebow’s Autobiography

Like many auto­bi­ogra­phies, Tebow’s biog­ra­phy is light and easy. Being, as I am, an anglo-evangelical-home-schooled-male-missionary-kid-in-my-twenty-somethings, Tim and I share some sim­i­lar­i­ties. But beyond some back­ground stuff and our mutual faith, sim­i­lar­i­ties end. He’s three times my size, and has about 19,000% more ath­letic prowess than I do.

It was inter­est­ing to hear about Tim’s grow­ing up years, and how his fam­ily did things. He obvi­ously had involved par­ents, a solid home life, and a lot of sup­port. At times when it seems like we’re sur­rounded by crum­bling and dys­func­tional fam­i­lies, this was refresh­ing to read about.

The biog­ra­phy is sprin­kled with inspi­ra­tional thoughts and encour­ag­ing reminders—helpful stuff for believ­ers or nonbelievers. Although Tim is by no means a pas­tor or the­olo­gian, he sprin­kles in these kind of encouragements:

• God loves you.
• God has a plan for your life.
• Wit­ness to peo­ple overseas.
• Home­school­ers rock.
• Always do your best.
• You don’t know what your future is, but you know who holds your future.

I’m thank­ful for Tim Tebow’s Chris­t­ian tes­ti­mony in the pub­lic arena, and the wider influ­ence that his auto­bi­og­ra­phy may have.

Some Other Thoughts

It was appar­ent that the Tebow fam­ily pushed spir­i­tual growth in their chil­dren. This is not nec­es­sar­ily a bad thing. I did find it inter­ested that they cel­e­brated Tim’s sal­va­tion expe­ri­ence by tak­ing him to Dis­ney World. It was also inter­est­ing to hear that the Tebows paid their chil­dren (cash) if they received a char­ac­ter com­pli­ment from some­one out­side the imme­di­ate fam­ily. As a par­ent (of a tod­dler and a preschooler) I have no prob­lem care­fully using a reward sys­tem when I train them in cer­tain areas, but I am hes­i­tant to cre­ate an envi­ron­ment where spir­i­tual or char­ac­ter improve­ments are rewarded in such a way. It seems that doing so could fos­ter moral­ism, instead of true spir­i­tual growth. Sanc­ti­fi­ca­tion is some­thing that God does in a believer’s life. Although sanc­ti­fi­ca­tion is a process that involves the per­son, it seems unnec­es­sary and per­haps even dis­tract­ing to true sanc­ti­fi­ca­tion if you pay some­one for being good.

Yet I wax the­o­log­i­cal. So it’s a sports book. Don’t treat it at as a the­ol­ogy handbook.

It must be kind of hard to write an auto­bi­og­ra­phy when you’re a 24-year old pro­fes­sional foot­ball quar­ter­back with four regional cham­pi­onships, a Heis­man and about 45 other insanely awe­some awards. I say “it must be kind of hard,” because writ­ing about those kind of achieve­ments in your life may come across as arrogant.

Early on in the book, Tim dis­cusses the sig­nif­i­cance of Proverbs 27:2, “Let another praise you, and not your own mouth; some­one else, and not your own lips.” I appre­ci­ate his doing so, since the verse speaks to the impor­tance of humil­ity and is a clear warn­ing against self-praise. In spite of this dis­claimer, I couldn’t help but feel that the book did involve (per­haps by neces­sity?), a con­sid­er­able amount of “praise” that comes from Tim’s “own mouth,” and “own lips.” I am in no way try­ing to malign his char­ac­ter or ques­tion his motives in writ­ing about him­self. I am sim­ply relat­ing my impres­sions after read­ing the book, and admit­ting the chal­lenges of per­cep­tion when a 24-year old writes a book about him­self (or the chal­lenges of pub­lic per­cep­tion when any­one is out­ra­geously famous).

As Ted Kluck sar­don­ically smirks, “This book hap­pened because the mar­ket­place demanded it. I get that. I’m a capitalist.”

At times, Tebow speaks of his tri­als, his losses, deal­ing with dis­cour­age­ment, and fight­ing through hard times. Some of the spe­cific chal­lenges he faced were being passed up as a QB in high school, the death of his dog, the strug­gle over choos­ing which col­lege foot­ball schol­ar­ship to accept, being mocked by fans of an oppos­ing team, expe­ri­enc­ing an injury which almost caused him to miss a game, los­ing some foot­ball games, ago­niz­ing over the choice of which schol­ar­ship to accept, and the pain of wait­ing to see which pro team would recruit him. I rec­og­nize that sports can be extremely com­pet­i­tive, and los­ing foot­ball games can be very hard. The way in which he relates his chal­lenges may, how­ever, come across as super­fi­cial to peo­ple who have expe­ri­enced extreme pain and loss in life.

Tim has had a life marked by a lot of suc­cesses, a home where he has been loved and sup­ported, and a career which has gone nowhere but up. Sure, like any pop­u­lar fig­ure, he has a lot of naysay­ers and so-called ene­mies. By com­par­i­son, how­ever, the strug­gles of say, infer­til­ity, divorce, abuse, or the unex­pected death of close loved ones are much more severe and life-altering than los­ing a foot­ball game.

Thoughts from an Actual Tebow Fan

Since I’m nei­ther a Tebow fan­boy nor a foot­ball afi­cionado, I ran this post by some­one who’s fol­lowed Tebow a lot closer and for a lot longer than I have. Here’s what he said:

Tim Tebow appeals espe­cially to foot­ball fans who are intrigued by his sports suc­cess and want to know more of his life story since he’s such an unusual per­son to them (foot­ball stars are often thugs!). With the coun­sel of oth­ers, Tebow decided to write this book because he wasn’t sure if he would ever again have the plat­form that he cur­rently has, and he wanted to make the most of that plat­form for the sake of the gospel. Right now he may be the sin­gle most influ­en­tial Chris­t­ian on the planet. (That’s scary!) I’m pray­ing for him.

This Isn’t the Final Word on Tim Tebow

Tim is a believer in Jesus Christ, as I am. For this rea­son, I am grateful.

I’m not going to get myself embroiled in Tim’s con­tro­ver­sial sta­tus as the patron saint of evan­gel­i­cal sports fans, his pub­lic prayer moments (Tebow­ing), nor all the rest of the hype. Sim­ply put, if you’re evan­gel­i­cal and like Tebow, you’ll prob­a­bly like this book. If you don’t like Tim Tebow or don’t really have a strong feel­ing either way, then you prob­a­bly won’t be changed much.

More reflec­tions on Tebowmania

• Ted Kluck almost wrote the book. Since he didn’t get to write it, he decided to read it after it came out. Here’s what he thought.
  
• Greg Doyel (CBS) has his own spin on the wit­ness­ing theme.
• WSJ dis­cusses Sunday’s game.
• WSJ talks about God’s Quar­ter­back.
• WSJ must love Tebow.

I’m just thank­ful for the plat­form God has given me.” —Tim Tebow