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The story of Joseph from the Old Testament is fairly familiar to most of us. We may recall that he was the 11th son of Jacob, who was sold by his brothers into slavery and wound up as a steward over the household of an official named Potiphar. Joseph eventually winds up attracting attention from Potiphar’s wife, and when he refuses her, she has him imprisoned.
I love rubber bands. They are one of the greatest inventions ever! They are simple, practical, and useful. And, while there are many uses for them, one of the most basic functions of rubber bands is to hold a group of objects together.
I always keep a rubber band around my wrist. You never know when you might need one! But my habit took on new meaning this past year when my friend and FCA teammate, Donnie Dee, who also wears one around his wrist, offered me a challenge. When I asked him why he wore his rubber band, he said that it was a constant reminder that God wanted to stretch him daily. I was converted on the spot!
Without a doubt, one of the greatest lessons I have learned from athletics is that if you “stick with it,” good things can happen. I was once in a junior golf tournament with only three golfers in my division, with trophies awarded to the top two finishers. The second-place trophy was more beautiful than the first, so I secretly wanted it. I shot poorly on the first day of the two-day tournament. My two competitors were neck-and-neck, but I was a distant third. Though tempted to withdraw, I was not raised to be a quitter. When we came to the tournament’s next-to-last hole, I was still so far behind that I seemed a mere spectator. The hole was a relatively short par three over a lake. One of my competitors hit every single ball he had into the lake.
No matter what sport we play or coach, each one of us has been given specific gifts. Whether we compete at the middle school, high school, college or professional level, each one of us has been given gifts. When we put those gifts to use according to God’s purpose for them, great things happen.
God is the giver of every good thing. No matter where we are at in our athletic life, God gave us what we are using. He is the reason we can run, jump and throw. He is the reason we can swing a racquet, club or bat. There are even some world-class athletes who don’t run, but still use God’s gifts of athleticism. For instance, did you know that this year’s Boston Marathon was covered in less than two hours by an amazing athlete in a wheelchair?
It is hard to believe that David felt not one twinge of joy when Saul died; after all, Saul had made his life miserable for nearly twenty years. The sad truth is that neither Saul’s life nor his death glorified God. For that, David was sad, and in his lament of the bow, a song of sorrow, he chose to remember Saul’s accomplishments. David could have chosen to focus on the cruelty Saul inflicted upon him. Instead he chose to view Saul’s death from a national perspective rather than a personal one. God and Israel were David’s primary concerns, not himself, and he realized that he was merely one individual in an entire nation. It was largely this “kingdom” mentality, a teamminded approach, that allowed him to maintain proper perspective.
It was August 1984, at Alamo Heights High School. I burst into the middle of the locker room and yelled, “Who are we going to beat this week?” The room erupted and players and coaches celebrated like we had just won the championship, before we had even played a game! During that excitement my life changed direction. Louie Reiniger, one of our players, got in my face and yelled, “Coach, will you come to FCA tonight?”
We coaches spend a great deal of time and energy trying to instill confidence in our athletes. Hopefully our efforts are effective not only in competition but also in every area of our players’ lives. False confidence, the sort that stems from reliance on ourselves or our circumstances, is quite common in sports because it so easily comes with much flexing of muscles. Quiet confidence, on the other hand, is the opposite of surety that is built on physical strength. Quiet confidence comes only through faith in God, and it results in an assurance that we can handle whatever we face. How often do we conduct team practice with a quiet confidence?
While David and four hundred of his men set out to defeat the Amalekites (1 Sm 30:1–26), two hundred men stayed behind to watch the supplies because they were too exhausted to fight. I call these men the “taxi squad” They were not the frontline players, but they were nonetheless absolutely essential to the team. After his victory, David returned to the camp to greet the men who had stayed behind, even though some of the selfish frontliners did not want to share the plunder with the taxi squad. However, David knew that everyone had a role to play and that the victory had come from God. Therefore, David issued a statute for all of Israel—that while he was in charge all would share in the plunder, including the taxi squad.
I accepted the Lord at thirteen years old and had no problem sharing my faith with friends in junior high and high school. Not only was I a Christian, but a wrestler too. Wrestling gave me an audience to spread the Word, so I made a T-shirt that would show evidence of my faith.
“If the rush gets close, fall down and act like you were hit. We get an automatic first down if we draw a roughing-the-punter penalty.” If the referees are not calling holding for offensive linemen, have we ever instructed our athletes to hang on just a little? Do we influence the referees by showing our players how to have “hinged heels” when drawing an offensive foul in basketball? Ever silently wished that the best player would miss just this one game so we don’t have to play against the best of the best? Do we coach gamesmanship, win-at-all-costs attitudes with manipulation of the rules? Is winning more important than teaching character in sport and life?
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