By Mallory Mattingly
Former NFL linebacker and Super Bowl champion Ray Lewis shared his testimony about the time God told him to touch his teammate, Jacoby Jones, before the second half kickoff in Super Bowl XLVII.
“The night before the Super Bowl, I re-tore my tricep. I couldn’t go to the doctor, I couldn’t go to my teammates. What was I gonna tell them? That I can’t play?” the former Baltimore Ravens linebacker recalled in a video shared by Christhlete.
That’s when Lewis heard the voice of God.
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“A whisper came to me, ‘It ain’t about you; it’s about the team.’ And I got up, and I walked into that stadium. I came out of the locker room, my arm burning so bad, I’m running toward the sideline. My arm is burning so bad. God said, ‘Go touch Jacoby.’ I turned around and put both of my hands on Jacoby’s chest, and I said, ‘I’m just doing what God told me to do.’ And I ran back to the sideline, and I watched Jacoby go 109 yards.”
Jones scored the longest kick return touchdown in Super Bowl history that night, as the Baltimore Ravens won Super Bowl XLVII.
After his time in the NFL, Lewis gravitated towards being an NFL analyst as well as a motivational speaker to children across the country.
“So you guys look at me as Ray Lewis now, but I was the kid that had to wear the same pair of pants for five years, same pair of shoes, and every kid in the school was picking at me,” Lewis told a group of students. “I had nothing, but I came to school every day with a purpose that I will figure out a way to make it, but I had a structure, I had a disciplined structure that I’m gonna challenge each and every one of you to adopt today, because that disciplined structure forever changed how I saw my circumstances.”
Lewis recently advocated at the Florida State Capitol regarding concussion awareness and stronger safety protections for athletes. He spoke up about the topic this because he lost his son to an accidental overdose, which later revealed that he had Stage 2 Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE), a brain disease likely caused by repeated head injuries, according to the Mayo Clinic.
“I stand here as a father, as a warrior of Christ, and my son doesn’t stand next to me, but my other two sons do,” Lewis declared at the Florida State Capitol. “We are a family that believes in God with all of our hearts, and there are a lot of issues on why our kids are dying. There are a lot of things that we need to take a different approach to when we think about the things that our children are being exposed to.”
“Social media is worse than drugs now, because it’s taken the ability from being a parent simply away,” he continued. “Instead of hugging a child, we now give them an iPad or iPhone. There are so many things that if I were to challenge anyone, the one thing you never want to endure in life is having to bury your child.”
Whether inspiring students or advocating for change, it looks like Lewis continues to listen to God’s voice.
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