on top of the world...

If you get a chance, I highly recommend you read this article.

It is long, but well worth the ten or so minutes.

It is a "celebration" of Michael Jordan turning 50. It provides a glimpse into the life of the greatest basketball player ever.

A man who many would expect to be "living the dream," is stuck in the brokenness of this world with no hope of escape. Simply put, Michael Jordan is no different than you and I.

We wish our mortality won't find us: He just could never imagine being old. He seemed too powerful, too young, and death was more likely than a slow decline. The universe might take him, but it would not permit him to suffer the graceless loss and failure of aging. A tragic flaw could undo him but never anything as common as bad knees or failing eyesight.

We yearn for what we once had: Man, I wish I was playing right now. I would give up everything now to go back and play the game of basketball." "How do you replace it?" he's asked. "You don't. You learn to live with it."

We carry the scars of loss and grief:...and even 20 years after his father was murdered -- robbed of a Lexus and two championship rings given to him by his son -- it's clear that Jordan still needs his dad.

We desperately crave the approval of others: His whole life has been about proving things, to the people around him, to strangers, to himself. This has been successful and spectacularly unhealthy.

We place our hope in things which are fleeting: He described what the game meant to him. He called it his "refuge" and the "place where I've gone when I needed to find comfort and peace." Basketball made him feel complete, and it was gone.

We find our greatest strengths can also be our greatest weaknesses:"It's an addiction. You ask for this special power to achieve these heights, and now you got it and you want to give it back, but you can't. If I could, then I could breathe."

We have no identity: His self-esteem has always been, as he says, "tied directly to the game." Without it, he feels adrift. Who am I? What am I doing?

We can't find peace in the things we love:"How can I find peace away from the game of basketball?"

We fear loneliness will be our end: He hates being alone, because that means it's quiet, and he doesn't like silence. He can't sleep without noise. Sleep has always been a struggle for him. All the late-night card games, the trips to the casino during the playoffs, they've been misunderstood. They weren't the disease, they were the cure. They provided noise, distraction, a line of defense.

This is the story of the human condition. It is sad and depressing. Whether someone finds themselves on top of the world or in the deepest pit, the brokenness of this world stands there with them.

Only in Jesus can we find healing from all our brokenness and true hope. For knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot. He was foreknown before the foundation of the world but was made manifest in the last times for the sake of you who through him are believers in God, who raised him from the dead and gave him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God. (1 Peter 1:18-21)