A football recruiter asked a coach what type of player he wanted him to find to add to his team for the upcoming season. The coach said ‘I don’t want the kind of guy who gets knocked down and stays down.’ ‘Ok’ the recruiter said – ‘that makes sense.’ The coach said ‘then there is the guy who gets knocked down, gets back up, gets knocked down, gets back up.’ The recruiter said ‘Ok, I know what you want – you want the guy who gets back up when he is knocked down, right?’ “No” replied the coach. “I want that guy who is knocking everybody down!”

To be successful in life we must be able to bounce back after going through a difficult situation. Giving up is always easier than standing up. Giving in is always easier than digging in. You can allow circumstances in your life to become set backs or opportunities to bounce back. God wants us to know that we can come back from a setback –we can bounce back. Setbacks are normal in life. The devil tries his best to take advantage of setbacks because he knows people are vulnerable when things don’t turn out as they had planned. You’ll find that every successful person has had a setback or two and the reason they became successful was because they knew how to bounce back. Remember, Joseph had several dreams that he would become a man of great authority but he was sold into slavery by his brothers. That wasn’t a part of his dream- that was a setback. And then he was falsely accused and put in prison about 13 years. That wasn’t part of the dream – that was a setback. Despite all of those setbacks, Joseph made a comeback.

God is letting us know that even when we suffer setbacks, we can bounce back. Like Joseph, we must remain true to our integrity and honor God in everything we do and say no matter what happens to us. We are not to become bitter but trust that God is working out everything for our good. Things turn out for the best for the people who make the best of the way things turn out. We must be careful when we are in the midst of a setback not to allow it to stop us from reaching our destiny. I believe God made us like a rubber ball. The harder you slam a rubber ball to the ground the higher it bounces up. So we have to picture ourselves as rubber balls. We have to bounce when we hit rock bottom; we have to pull ourselves together and bounce back from a setback. God is the power that will help you to bounce back. So rely on God’s wisdom, His strength and His grace. Proverbs 24:16 says “”For a just man falls seven times, and rises up again.” This verse implies that falling down is not the end nor is it necessarily a onetime event. We will have highs and lows throughout life, but God always expects us to rise up again.