Put Me In Coach, I’m Ready To Play!

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centerfield

THERE COMES A TIME IN EVERYONE’S LIFE WHERE THEY MUST TIP THE BALANCE AWAY FROM DOING THE THINGS THAT MAKE THEM STRONGER……AND START DOING THE THINGS THAT THEY DO WELL.

The ongoing struggle to balance life- family, church, work, community……with God at the center of all.

The day may come when balance is an impossibility.  There is no fight left in you to get through an average day…….because there are no average days anymore.

When you’re picking up pebbles and holding onto them for enough consecutive days, you eventually pack the weight of a boulder on your back.

Maybe some pebbles were steps of faith or acts of obedience to God.

Some, I’m sure, were misguided steps rooted in people pleasing and over-reliance on self.

But carrying something for good reasons doesn’t mean we need to carry it forever.

Look to God when you’re still standing instead of looking to Him after you collapse from the weight.

Maybe it wasn’t a breaking point, but more like a “something’s gotta change” moment.

I picked up my 9 year-old son from Wednesday night church activities after finishing a 14-hour work day.  As I was trying to have a short conversation with another adult, play-fighting/wrestling started between my son and me.

He hit me with a right hook……so hard that my glasses went flying across the room.  As I led him silently (and not so gently) out of the room, another child retrieved my glasses and nervously handed them to me.

She knew Kal was in big trouble  .And I knew something had to change.

I saw a glaring deficit of character in my son and I knew it was time for a sobering look in the mirror to see how he arrived there.

Among other things, I told him that this was the worst thing that any of our four children had done………..and then truth hit me square in the face this time.

During the first nine years of life for his brother and sisters, I wasn’t off trying to save the world…….living life like God had granted me some sort of invincibility.  Raising God-honoring children had been my greatest passion, and I somehow got off course.

Change came gradually.

My life’s not supposed to be easy.

Living life at a high rate of speed.  Rest is overrated.

To whom much is given much is expected.

Not worrying, just plotting the next challenge.

If you’re doing it for God, then God will provide a way to get through it.

Bend over and pick up the next pebble.

Sometimes in obedience to God.

Sometimes unintentionally people-pleasing.

Never willing to show weakness, I attracted the pebbles of others

As the weight gets heavier, does trust in God grow, or does one just simply work harder?

Maybe I started thinking, “That’s ok God…..I got this.”

Time and energy that God seems to supply when we follow His paths somehow go away.

My best hope for changing the world and changing eternity…..is to raise kids who have an amazing impact in this world.  Character doesn’t happen by accident, especially the kind that honors, obeys, and loves God.

Change has to happen.  If I knew how, I would.

Pray, and wait, and be ready to make changes today that don’t necessarily bring results tomorrow.

I traditionally go Christmas shopping on Christmas Eve by myself.  My oldest daughter was in from college, so I asked her to tag along.  Thankfully she said yes.  We shopped, not because we had to, but because we could.

It turned out to be a wonderful day spent together.  A day that felt so different than any in recent memory.  I transformed into a different person.  A person with a greater ability to impact the lives of those around me.  Relaxed.  Smiling and speaking to strangers.  Truly enjoying my daughter’s company.  Enjoying the moment in a new way.

Later in the evening, I came to realize why.

A mind at true rest.  The burden of problem solving and problem preventing that normally fills my mind was absent.  Even though I’m not a worrier by any means, I am a thinker and a planner…….constantly on guard against winding up in unfavorable situations.

Looking too far ahead.  Distracted.  Missing out on right now.  Constantly training and preparing for “tomorrow”.

Be careful of a life that becomes so full (even if it’s full of good things) that you spend your days in deep thought trying to solve it all, distracted from the present……..and the people in the present…..and in your presence.

A life that becomes too full for rest is in danger of becoming too full for God.

God’s love and direction in our lives can become clouded as we live like a panicked drowning man fighting against the person trying to pull us to the surface.

For the people who depend on you to shape their future, it’s important to have a vision for the future.  But their greatest hope may lie in your efforts to make the most out of each moment in the present……without distraction.

Sports teams in preseason practices get dreadfully restless and bored until the real games start.

“Coach, can we at least scrimmage today?”

“Coach, you gonna pass out uniforms today?”

Don’t be a Bengals fan, living each season for “next season”.

John Fogerty – Centerfield

Got a beat-up glove, a homemade bat, and brand-new pair of shoes
You know I think it’s time to give this game a ride
Just to hit the ball and touch ’em all, a moment in the sun
It’s gone and you can tell that one goodbye!

Oh, put me in, Coach, I’m ready to play, today

It’s time to carry people instead of rocks!

Being a parent is a full-time job.  Do it well.  The season starts today.

Got the right uniform on again.  Put me in Coach.

 

How Will I Laugh Tomorrow…..When I Can’t Even Smile Today?

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dead end

If we fail to choose a destination, we most likely will end up in a place that we didn’t choose to be.

Punk/thrash band Suicidal Tendencies covers this concept pretty well in their 1988 song “How Will I Laugh Tomorrow…”   the next line is “when I can’t even smile today.

ST

Day after day, we live moment to moment, with no vision or planning for the future. No intention in our actions, no direction.  Just getting by.  Our mental state and our next action are dictated by the circumstances that we find ourselves digging out of, instead of our planning and intentions.

“The clock keeps ticking, but nothing else seems to change
Problems never solved, just rearranged
And when I think about all the times that I’ve had
Some were good most were bad”

How did I reach this point? 

Maybe a better question would be, “how did I expect to wind up anywhere else?”

When my sons do something brainless and get a horrible result, my reaction is often, “Son!  What did you think was gonna happen?”

They didn’t think far enough ahead (or they didn’t think at all).  Their vision only reached the next 2 seconds and five feet ahead.

Extend this decision making process into adulthood.

Everyone has heard, “If you don’t have time to do it right, when will you have time to do it over?”

Eventually, our days are filled with do overs and damage control.

We can’t concern ourselves with saving money when we’re stressing over scraping up enough to pay this months bills.

We don’t worry about where our kids will be at 18 when we are constantly at the end or our rope with a couple of toddlers.

We don’t worry about running a 5k race when we’re ready to pass out from climbing a flight of stairs.

We can’t make plans for a better career path, when we’re struggling to hang on to the job we have.

We ruin new relationships because our current relationships are such a mess that we stay in a terrible state of mind.

Try to give a youth basketball player advice on shooting mechanics.  Even if you’ve witnessed 15 straight misses and just want to offer a minor adjustment to their technique, the answer is always the same………”it just doesn’t feel right”.  Translation=I’m comfortable doing it the wrong way and I’m not gonna change.

We are all guilty of this; only willing to make changes and adjustments in cases where we see instant results, improvement, or gratification.

We only concern ourselves with making that “next shot”.  Five years from now, we still can’t shoot.  We lose our love for the game, doubt our value to the team, and basketball becomes a miserable experience.

How will I laugh tomorrow, when I can’t even smile today?

Make a choice to laugh tomorrow.  But making changes today doesn’t always mean that the laughter comes today.  Stay the course.  Change the future.

Make plans.

Make changes, even if you don’t see immediate results.

Obviously, we aren’t guaranteed of tomorrow.  But we don’t have to find ourselves in a mess when it does come …..because we ignore it today and fail to prepare for it.

Don’t settle for being comfortable doing things the wrong way.  Don’t be afraid to tackle difficult changes with an eye on the future.

 

 

 

 

Just To Spite the Seinfelds

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frank constanza

In one of my favorite Seinfeld episodes, both Jerry and George’s parents are considering moving to a Florida to the retirement community of Del Boca Vista.  Frank Costanza gets the impression that the Seinfelds don’t want them to live there.

“You think you can keep us out of Del Boca Vista…we’re moving in lock stock and barrel.  We’re gonna be in the pool, we’re gonna be in the clubhouse, we’re gonna be all over that shuffleboard court…AND I DARE YOU TO KEEP ME OUT!!!”

Just to spite the Seinfelds?  And he yells in reply, “JUST TO SPITE THE SEINFELDS!”

Do you ever find yourself reaching that point (or living for years at that point) where you’re constantly puzzled by finding the truth of being where God truly wants you to be and doing the things that He wants you to do?  Feeling like perhaps you’re doing the right things but doing them poorly?  Thoughts of scaling back and simplifying your life creep in or sometimes come over you like an avalanche.   Tired of making excuses and wallowing in mediocrity.  “MAN, I SUCK AT______.”  God desires excellence and I give him excuses and half-done………everything.

I recently told my middle school basketball players that this would be one of the most important quotes/lessons they would every hear from me:

“Your confidence on the court cannot be based on your performance or your ability level.  Your confidence must come from your level of effort and determination.  When this happens, there is no failure.”

Practice what you preach, coach.  Performance, results, people-pleasing, excess of self-reliance or self-confidence………they all cloud our vision of simply doing what is right by God’s standards.  Obedience rarely equals comfort and popularity.   In a life of Christian faith, I suppose we could substitute the word “peace” for “confidence”.  A peace that comes from maintaining a high standard of effort toward pleasing and obeying God.

What God desires for us to do, he also equips us to do.

Ephesians 2:10

10 For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

He desires excellence in all things from His children.  Discouragement, stress, overload, fear of failure……these are lies of Satan.

Don’t scale back.  Don’t retreat.  Know that you are where God wants you to be.  Stay there.  Try harder.  Trust more,

JUST TO SPITE THE DEVIL (but truthfully, just to please our Heavenly Father).

DETERMINATION= “I am gonna do this.”  +  FAITH= “My strength is not enough, but my Lord will become greater in my weakness.”  EQUALS…….Satan loses every time

I’m Not Gonna Do It, So Don’t Ask

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I swear, if one more person asks me to do
something, it’s gonna get ugly!
“I’m not really looking for anything else to do right now.”
“I’ve got about all I can handle.”  or even,
“I could probably do more,
but I’m just not going to right now.”
I can promise you that I have said these things out loud
or thought them thousands of times.
It’s easy to drift into that
“if I can just get through this day” mentality.  Survival.
The craziness of a full-time job and raising kids.
Plus, there are people at church that ask me to do things
all the time……surely they don’t understand how BUSY I am.
Nobody else could possibly be as busy as me, right?
Get somebody else to do it.
I AM FULL
But……I can also promise you the biggest
failings that I’ve had as a Christian
(and father, husband, business person, etc)
have not been due to sin, but instead due to apathy and
laziness.  Overestimating how busy or tired I am,
not caring enough about others to get off my butt and
get moving.  And most importantly, failing to take into
account the love, strength, and guidance of my
Heavenly Father when making plans or figuring
out how much “I” am capable of taking on.
I sit still.
I fail to serve, grow, love, or live life to the full
because I simply fail to trust God.
1 Peter 4:11 tells us, “If anyone serves, they should do so
with the strength God provides, so that in all things God
may be praised through Jesus Christ.”
I don’t know of any organization that is made up of
individuals who view themselves as slackers, lazy,
underachieving, or doing just enough to get by.
But every family, church, business, and sports team is
filled with people who think they are giving their best
and doing all they can do, when they’re really not.
We’ve all seen that person and been that person.
Doesn’t do any good to have others tell us we can do
more and be more until we decide to change,
to trust God more and rely on His strength and not our
own to get us moving in the right direction.
Whether you need God to push you or pull you,
you have to trust Him enough to take the first step in the
right direction.  Stop living uphill, fighting a losing battle
on your own.  Find positive momentum.
Start moving and let Him keep you moving.
You might surprise yourself.
You might even (gasp!) start looking for something more to do.

Please Pile One More Thing On My Back

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work overload

I took a personal oath to not use these phrases:
 I’m tired (I’m tarred or plum wore out….are acceptable in extreme cases)
I’m stressed
I’m overwhelmed
I’m so busy
But today, in a moment of weakness, I let my guard down.  My wife called me at work and could tell I was struggling, asked how I was doing.  Without thinking, I responded with the queen mother of all dirty words……
“I feel defeated“.
I knew better.  But… it was out of my mouth and I couldn’t take it back.  Fudge!
The spirit of the rule is to stay in motion to conquer those days (pretty much every day) where life pulls you in too many directions.  Work, parenting, crazy schedules, difficult people, sickness and physical pain, family and relationship problems, taking care of a home.  That last nerve often dangles on a thin thread.  It leaves little margin for error and things can run downhill in a hurry when things don’t turn out as planned (or especially when we simply fail to plan).  Maybe there is an unspoken fear or just the voice of experience that tells us the walls might cave in if we stop moving and stop getting things done. That familiar feeling of having too much to do and not enough hours in the day to get them done.  It’s a hard feeling to shake off day after day.  We get fooled into thinking that our peace and our happiness depends on accomplishing everything that we fool ourselves into thinking we have to accomplish.  We become prisoners of our circumstances and our tasks. and maybe even tell ourselves that we will serve and trust God a little more as soon as we get our head back above water.
Fear and stress can bring you to an abrupt halt and your state of mind only worsens.  Paralized with fear or defeat.
“I can’t do this.”
You pray.
For what?  For God to do your work for you or to fix the mess you made by not planning well or working hard.  Pray and wait?  No…maybe….sort of.   Pray for peace, guidance, and strength.  Pray for the wisdom of growing in the understanding of God’s ways each day.  And get your butt moving.  Day after day, time after time, the to-do list is done, the work is done, and God lends peace from a better perspective of seeing more clearly the worthlessness of worry.
Matthew 6:27 ” Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?”
When we pray, we don’t know God’s timing, and we do have to wait.  But I don’t think we really need to sit still while we wait.  We’re not doing it ourselves because we don’t trust Him.  We’re simply making a choice to not ask Him to carry us out of a rut that he has given us the ability to walk out of.
It’s usually not until the end of the day that realize that I have “won” yet again.  I always do because my hope is in Jesus.  Why couldn’t I see it that way when that feeling of defeat hit me?  Perhaps because I failed to pray previously for His strength and guidance?  Or maybe I did pray and I just failed to listen for an answer; an answer that could have been something as simple a reminder of where my hope lies.  Sometimes it’s a reminder from an event or a person that lets me know I need to serve and glorify him through life’s storms, large and small……not just before or after the storms.   But on those crazy days where I charge BLINDLY ahead
“I GOT THIS”
like I can conquer this day on my own, it doesn’t seem right to ask Him to carry my burden once I have dug in so deeply in the wrong direction.  Finally realizing my own weakness and stubbornness, turning to God in prayer, my load sure got lighter when I asked him to walk with me………..once I stopped griping and started moving again with HIM.
Of course He was there the whole time, I just turned my eyes and thoughts in the wrong direction.
So go ahead.  Pile it on.
“WE GOT THIS!”

Philippians 4:13  (NCV)

13 I can do all things through Christ, because he gives me strength.