Tim Tebow released a powerful op-ed through Fox News last month detailing his walk in faith and how God has changed his life since his football days. He began by reflecting on his life in August 2021, soon after he had been cut from the Jacksonville Jaguars. Since his breakout performance playing for the Denver Broncos in 2010 and the “Tebowing” craze afterward, Tebow’s athletic career had been sporadic. He left football in 2016 after a series of unsuccessful QB stints to pursue a career in the MLB. He made it as far as Triple-A before eventually retiring from baseball in 2021. Reflecting on being cut from the Jaguars after his attempt to reenter the sport as a tight end, Tebow began to second-guess his choices. “Should I have continued pursuing my career with the Mets? Could this be the end of my athletic career? What if I had made different choices along the way? Would I still be playing right now?” he wrote. 

Tebow’s thoughts soon turned to the concerns of the Tim Tebow Foundation, which now worked to help evacuate refugees during the US withdrawal in Afghanistan. Tebow found himself working with a partner organization to fly to a nearby country to meet Afghanistan evacuees. The flight offered Tebow an opportunity to reflect on his past. He recalled his life-changing experience with a boy named Sherwin, who had been born with severely deformed legs and was treated as an outcast. The experience had taught Tebow to focus less on himself and instead to focus on what God wanted from him in helping others. “While I had my sights set on becoming the Most Valuable Player, God was opening my eyes to show me that the MVPs I should be chasing the most were the Most Vulnerable People. The same people Jesus intentionally sought out during His time on earth. In Ephesians 2:10, it says that we are ‘…created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.’ I believe that each one of us has not only been saved from something but that we have also been saved for something.”

He went on to reflect on the impact his ministry, which seeks to rescue victims of human trafficking, has had. He recounted countless people saved from darkness, babies were given refuge, and lives changed. “It was ironic that just days after I was cut from the Jaguars, ending one dream, that I was reminded, yet again, of the bigger mission to which God called me decades ago,” he recalled. He realized that God had used his being cut from the Jaguars to free him up to help others. “For the first time since I had been cut, I was grateful and could see a greater purpose,” Tebow wrote. He ended his editorial with a challenge to other Christians to follow God’s calling for them. “Our mission is a big one. But He is Immanuel, God with us. Let’s keep going — together.” He reiterated his call to Christians through additional comments to Fox News on another segment. “My hope for you is that you begin to live your life with a deeper sense of purpose, meaning and significance than ever before and make your life count,” he said as he promoted his new devotional Mission Possible. “Today, you can begin to live your life on a trajectory that sets you up to accomplish feats of eternal purpose.”