Scripture is the basis of our faith. But, sometimes, I think we get so caught up in life that we start to look at familiar verses and almost label them as cliché. As sad as that sounds, we hear verses like John 3:16, Philippians 4:13 and Jeremiah 29:11 and simply pass them by or say to ourselves, “Oh, I’ve heard that a thousand times.” While that may be true, it doesn’t take away the relevance of Scripture!

A high school coach of mine once said that when things go wrong, it is important to go back to the basics—to the foundation of the game—and to re-establish a routine. He was talking about softball, but I think this relates to our faith in a profound way.

Cal Ripken Jr., who broke Lou Gehrig’s consecutive-game record (Gehrig’s 2,130 to Ripken’s 2,632 straight games in the lineup), credits his father, Cal Ripken Sr. for the mentoring, coaching, and example to break the record. Junior remembers that his father had many mottoes and pronouncements. One of his favorite sayings was: “Do two million little things right, and the big things take care of themselves.” His point was to take pride in the fundamentals.

All of us face the game of life each day with its tests and temptations. Being a Christian doesn’t guarantee that we will never have problems. But as Christians, we have biblical guidelines and fundamentals to help us have victory over our trials.

Hockey Chat: When a coach sends his players out there, he is sending them to do the best for him.  If the player was to go out there and played just with consideration for the other team, he’d be letting down his coach.  But good players go out there and play for the guy standing behind there bench, and that will always clash with the opposition.

Hockey Chat: When a player is called up to the big leagues of the NHL he has got the chance to make a name for himself and an impact on the hockey world.  He knows it’s his big break.  Years of training had lead up to this and now he’s been called upon to be the best player he can be.  But if he uses that chance to be a puck-hog or run up the penalty minutes, he has not used his big opportunity wisely and he’ll be a big let down to the ones who believed in him.