Transcription
I come into my junior year, and I'm about to get exactly what I want. About to get this thing called NFL. And I'm ten games away from this dream that I wanted my whole life, right, this thing that I've been working for my whole life, my whole life is dedicated to this.
One game, I'm up Saturday mornings, four o'clock, five o'clock in the morning, two miles to a fire station, two miles back home. I'm in the park 9:30, 10:00 at night, doing everything in my life surrounded the game of football. I'm sitting at home at night; I'm throwing balls up to the ceiling and I'm catching them different type of ways, trying to see if a receiver wants to check me, if I want to catch an intercept, like everything revolved around this game, and I finally get in the position in my life to where now I'm ten games away from it. I've got the paperwork that states I'm about to be an NFL draft pick. NFL on top of the paper. Inky Johnson projected top thirty, automatic multi-millionaire. Now all you have to do, the hard part's over, just play the next ten football games. Ink, you've made it.
And I go out in a silly game against Air Force, two minutes left, and I go to make a tackle that I can make with my eyes closed. And I hit this guy, and as soon as I hit him, I knew it was a problem, but I didn't think it would be this type of problem. Like, you know, how when things happen, like I didn't expect that, but I don't think it's gonna be anything too crazy. And when I hit him, every breath from my body left my body, goes completely limp. I fall to the ground. I blacked out. My eyes open; I'm still not, you know, too concerned because it's football. I told Pastor I never thought about a career-ending injury; you have injuries within the game. When my eyes open, guys run over, "Ink, let's rock man, let's go, let's finish them off," and I'm like, "I can't." Like, "What do you mean you can't? You are our starting corner, get up, you can nurse your injury after the game, man." Like, "No, I can't." They said, "What do you mean you can't?" I can't move. It's a shock, neck to my toes; I can't feel anything. Shock leaves; it stays in my right arm and hand. I'm like, maybe I got a bad stinger. They put me on the spine board, wheeling me off the field. Doctor says to me as he's walking beside me, "I don't know how you're still alive, son, you don't have any pulse."
We get to the ambulance, my father standing there. I'm like, "Pops, I laid it on him right, I put it on him right." My dad's like, "Yeah, but I think you got the worst part of this one, Ink." Doctor say, "We're gonna take you over, run a couple of tests, bring you back into the room, everything will be cool." They run the tests; they bring me back into the room; Mom comes in, kisses, praise, "Son, you'll be fine," she's going to walk out; doctors rush in, head boy says, "Hey man, got to rush him back to surgery, he's about to die." And I look at him, and I want to ask him like, "Man, you can't use another word, like use a synonym, brother. Why you gotta say die, like you sure die, man?" And he could tell from how I'm looking at him that I'm questioning him. He says to me, "You've ruptured a subclavian artery in your chest; you're bleeding internally. If we don't perform his surgery tonight, I guarantee you you won't be here in the morning."
From seven years old to 20 years old, bowled down to one moment. The sacrifice, the dedication, the commitment came down to one moment. And the next morning when I woke up from that surgery, the NFL on my scale of life was that big SEC championship, that big cornerback, that big—I was embarrassed. I'm sitting there, and people coming into my room like, "Inky man, I'm sorry about what happened to you," and I'm saying to myself, "Man, Ink, you really messed it up this time." Like, man, that's really the only thing you wanted, huh? Like you just thought because you grew up in this so-called hood, two-bedroom home, 14 people, like the only thing you really wanted was the NFL, that's it. I'm like, man, you limited God to that. Like life holds no substance, no value, like efficient but not effective. I did things right, but I never did the right thing. And now the thing I place my identity in, now it is gone.
That's why I laugh at people when they say, "Man, if I could just get this, I'll be…" Man, if I could just get this position, I'll be whoo. Man, if I could just get this amount of money, I'll be… I'm like, but what happens even if you get it or you don't get it? What happens when God says yes and no? Like, do you have the ability to accept what you don't understand? Can you still see God's plan when it didn't go the way that you thought it would go? Can you handle when things get off course? I'm sitting there and I'm thinking like, man, I'm eight games away, and God is redirecting me, and I'm like, "God, just let me get to the NFL, then redirect me." Like, let me get the contract, then redirect me so that I can help my family, and God's like, "No, son, I need you to really go that way," and I'm like, "You sure? Like, man, I need to go this way." He's like, "No, I need you to go this way. I got something better. It now might take a little longer to manifest, but I got something even sweeter. Like, I got something more fulfilling, I got something more rewarding, I got something, son, that's gonna carry you for the rest of your life. Like, it's an amazing thing."
I knew this was what I was supposed to be doing when one day I'm backstage, and I got the same feeling that I got when I used to be in the tunnel before I was running out in Neyland Stadium. I said, "Thank you, God." And so now I live my life a certain type of way according to what God has done. I live my life a certain type of way according to the power that I know the Lord possesses. I live my life a certain type like when I go to the Lord in prayer, I go bold. And every time I go bold, I'm so thankful that that's not me and my Lord's first time communicating.
And people have the nerve to ask me all the time, "Inky, why wouldn't you change what happened to you? You got a paralyzed right arm and hand." I'm like, "If you only knew, and if you only saw the works that God has done in people's lives around me, what he's done in me, yeah, it's great, it's cool, but what God has done in the people's lives around me, like you can't put a price on that." Like, at a certain point, like what is it really about? Like, and I know the initial reaction when we go through things is to say, "Man, why does this have to happen to me?" and that's an honest reaction. Because sometimes good people go through some crazy stuff. And some of the things we go through, I'm just gonna be real, there's not a scripture for it. It's not you can't go, "Hey, go to Romans 2:2," they're like, "What?" There's not. But this is what I've understood in life: some people don't need you to preach a sermon; they need you to live one. And so when they see you living it, they can connect and identify with that.
The only thing I ask of you, as talented as brilliant as powerful as beautiful as you are, never allow life to make you forget why you started in the first place. Meaning that first time you said, "Man, I'm riding with Christ, let's go." That first feeling you got, like that first interaction, that first connection you got, like when you first got it, it's like when people say at the beginning everybody is excited, everybody is on fire, but at a certain point you hit something along the journey, and it's going to test that level of commitment. At a certain point, you're gonna hit something; it's gonna test that level of faith, and my definition of commitment was always staying true to what I said I would do long after the mood that I've said it in has left. Like, am I gonna stay true to my beliefs and my core and my essence of who I am as an individual even if I get a paralyzed right arm and hand? Am I gonna stay true to even if my career that I thought I was gonna have disappears? Am I gonna stay true to it even if one day I'm in a football game, the thing I love to do, the thing I have been practicing my whole life, and then one moment it gets wiped out? Am I gonna stay true to it? Because depending upon if I'm gonna stay true to it, a lot of other people's belief in their Christian journey is predicated upon that in my belief and my Christian journey.
In other words, I've seen a lot of other people say, "Inky, I want to give my life to Christ, not because of something that happened with me but because of something I've seen happen to you." And so when ESPN comes to me and says, "Ink, you would be in the NFL right now," like if you only knew, if you only knew my father got saved because of my injury, if you only knew my three boys that went first round to the NFL, all of them got saved, if you only knew, if you only knew my mother, the level of affect, like if you only knew. Like, I just seen God do some things through the injury, and I'm like, man, every day I wake up, I just try to stay out of His way.
I'm gonna leave you with this: We already know what to do when God says yes. We already know what to do when we get blessed. We already know what to do when our prayers get answered. But the question that I have for you, and it's rhetorical, what will you do when God says no?