Swinney’s Faith Has Carried Him

Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney met with the media Tuesday for his weekly press availability, and in the midst of a season where his Tigers are in the hunt for not only another ACC Championship, College Football Playoff berth and possible national Title, Swinney took the time to share how he has handled the ups and downs: through his faith.

"But I mean, faith is just kind of the foundation of my life.

'I mean, it just helps me have the perspective I guess would be the biggest thing I would say. To know that you know, God, no matter what happens whether it's good or bad, you know, as a person of faith, I know that God is ultimately I'm his child and I know He loves me, no matter what. Certainly not a perfect person by any stretch of the imagination, but through faith and through Christ, I know where I'm gonna spend eternity and so that gives me peace and I just, I guess, you know, I think my faith keeps me anchored, I think life happens for all of us, right?

"I mean, it's just there's no, there's nothing you can do about that. We're all gonna have major trials and tribulations through life and storms of life and you know, just you know, my faith has always kept me anchored down and allowed me to have peace no matter what. And it's allowed me to grow through adversity and develop into hopefully a person that's more Christ-like as as I, as I live my life--as I lead my life.

"But again, it's just giving me hope and you know I believe Romans 8:28: I believe that and that is all things work together, you know for the good of those who love the Lord. I mean I absolutely believe that and you know I think that there's things that happen in life, on this earth, this side of eternity that will never understand, we have no way to understand but Christ, you know, he tells us to we can't lean on our own understanding.

"You know you just have to keep our eyes on Him, acknowledge Him and through that, you know what I've experienced in my life is peace no matter what you know. As I said, you know a couple of years ago I talked a lot about joy right?

"You know happiness is dependent upon something right? Like we're happy when this, we're happy when we win.

"We're happy when, you know whatever, my wife gives me a kiss whatever you know we're happy.

"Happiness is really dependent. But joy, joy is something that I think is a constant when you know Christ. So for me, it's always been just whether things are great or whether things are just awful, just keep my eyes on the Lord, you know, no matter what. You know we're supposed to praise him and the good and the bad and that's really hard to do, you know but that's what my faith has taught me is to just, you know, count my blessings on the worst days and count my blessings on the, on the best days, and you know, just keep my eyes on him, no matter what I believe, no matter what, just don't quit, you know, don't quit doing that.

"And that's always giving me peace. It's always given me perspective and it's allowed me to take some of the biggest, you know, messes in my life if you will, and, you know, create a message from it, you know, through life, through my experiences.

"You know, God never says, oops, and I've tried to live by that for a long time. So I guess the biggest thing is my faith gives me peace. My peace doesn't come from a scoreboard for me, peace doesn't come from, you know, getting the answer that you want to hear whatever it never has, you know, when peace comes from, knowing whose I am and where I'm gonna spend eternity--that's where my peace comes from, and all the rest of it, you know?

"You know life happens, but it all comes back to that relationship and that peace that comes from knowing Christ."

No. 4 Clemson (7-0, 5-0 ACC) opened Sunday as a 13.5-point favorite, according to FanDuel Sportsbook, in Saturday's noon game against No. 18 Syracuse (6-0, 3-0).

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