An "F "in Football:
When I was a kid of 8 or 9, or so, I played little league
football and was on the “red team”.
As I remember we were OK or maybe even good, because we had Garnet S ( I won’t use his name
since I don’t have his permission), but Garnet S later played quarterback for two different college football teams.
I remember during one of the early games of our Little League season the coach
telling me to go in as right tackle, after which I ran onto the field and
promptly asked Garnet S, my friend, “Where does the right tackle go?” I know, I know….I should have known these things after all the practices we'd had...at least a few. However, if at practice no one
tells you the simple facts of football you still don’t know where the right
tackle goes or what he does. And if you are too shy or too afraid to ask "Coach" then you still don't know.
Garnet
would tell me to block that guy or go after the guy with the ball…or something
profound. I knew Garnet would go
far because he actually knew where the right tackle was supposed to line up and
what he was to do when he got there.
After a while I got tired of not knowing and not playing
much. Wonder why coach didn't play me much? Never mind.... I know.. I stank!
Funny, but I just realized that the same thing happened in
basketball. Never thought of the
connection until this moment….and I am 63 years old.
A "D" in Basketball:
When I played Little League basketball, Mr. C, the coach, played
his best players almost all the time, and one of those guys was his son. I was still
around 9 or 10, maybe, so we weren’t playing for national championships or for
money, unless Mr. C was betting on the games. Doubt it. I
came to practice faithfully as I recall then sat on the bench most of the
games. Just before the last game or
two of the season, I quit the team only to discover that Mr. C played the bench
squad more than usual during those few remaining games. Why did the coach not play me? I know....I stank!
Now I know I may not have been the best football or
basketball player ever, but now that I know what I did in neighborhood ball games and later playing intermurals in
college, I think I could have been a "better than average" player in both
sports because I had some skill and I was fast. What I needed was a coach who’d teach me the basics….you know like
Vince Lombardi would say, "Gentlemen, this is a football,” and - as I understand the
stories - would make sure the guys knew the fundamentals.
When you try to run trick plays or even basic plays with
guys who don’t know where the right tackle is, you might be coaching a team
that won’t go far or you may be coaching a team of guys who stay frustrated
because they are not winning very often, unless you only play your “stars”…if you
happen to be blessed with enough stars.
And if you are gifted with stars, as a coach, you may not be very
interested in training more stars or perhaps you simply don’t know how.
Is that what has happened to marriage and family and church?
Perhaps the coaches (pastors or denominational leaders) are
only interested in the “star Christians” who seem to have it all together. But what about us mediocre-at-best guys
who want to shine on God’s team but don’t know how? What about the guys and gals who want great marriages and
want to be superb, Bible-based parents but have never seen it done? What about those who wanted to win the
world for Christ, but felt like such failures at home, or work, or both that
they concluded they had nothing to give because they weren’t succeeding in the two
or three most important relationships in life – marriage, parenting, spiritual
leadership.
And then there are those who had great businesses and looked
great on the outside and were highly esteemed as successes but had no more of
an idea how to love well at home than the schmucks who were just barely getting
by financially.
But when you asked them, everyone was “fine, just
fine”. Liars! Well, maybe that is too harsh. Many weren’t lying; they just didn’t
believe those asking, “How are you doing?” , really wanted an answer. Perhaps they weren’t any better at
relationships at church than they were at home.
In my view, we take our home relationships and foist them
onto the world around us. So my home relationship style of leadership, caring, and conflict resolution get transferred to work, church, and outside groups. We may even be better at relationships outside the home...for a while. Even if
we fake it outside the home, eventually it all catches up with us and the truth
of our ineptness will be revealed.
You may feel I am being overly critical. You are probably wrong.
I am not bitter but I am tired of watching families fail and
churches do little-to-nothing about it….either on the preventative-side of
helping them experience and build great relationships before marriage by way
of friendships or on the equipping-side of things to give
couples the skills via biblical principles and mentoring needed to live out
the very things the preacher is telling them to do. Most can’t do it because they have not seen it done….in
their own homes of origin or in the families in the church currently.
Like football and basketball, I went into marriage with only
a few skills and a heart full of “want to do it right”. I wanted to have the best family and the greatest marriage ever! I can remember bits and pieces of
relationships I observed during my youth where they had something I wanted to have in my own
marriage one day, but I don't remember many. I
also had little to no training about what love is, how you do it, how loved we
are by our Father in heaven, and how to be free in Christ to give love away.
I know I am writing more than folks will read but that is
OK. This is more for me than for
others anyway. I seem to have to get this off my chest tonight.
When you have a heart to win, and you have some skills, but no training – no proper equipment – no encouragers – no effective coaching--- only a vision of
being a Michael Jordan, then you have a recipe for a great Sports Illustrated cover story for the
kid who actually overcame the obstacles or for a sad story of a guy who joins
the statistics of the people we call losers.
I am here to tell you that God is after those guys who may
never be stars on anyone’s team but can be on His Star Lover/Leader Team. He'll even let a few of the cover story guys on His team. Of all the things He wants us to do
best -the choices are narrowed to one.
One thing Jesus Himself said was THE most important thing ever…..loving
God with all my heart, soul, mind, and strength and loving you as I love
myself. Sound familiar?
Who coached you to love more and more, as Jesus loves?
Who modeled that kind of love for you? ... to you?
Who gave you the relational tools and equipment, and taught you to use
it and how to put it on properly?
Who loved you so much like Jesus that you caught it, even
if you were not taught it?
Who took you by the hand and said "Gentleman or Lady, this is love.”, now let’s learn how to recognize love, develop it, overcome
obstacles in the way of it, and how to maintain it? In fact, let’s learn how to get better at it with each
passing year.
Who taught you to apply love to your marriage?
Who taught you how to pass along a new legacy of love to
your children and your children’s children or those children, not your own, that you are called to adopt, foster-parent, or serve as a representative of Christ?
If the answers to the above questions indicate that you have
had to learn this yourself, then you and I have a gracious God to thank. The Lord Jesus gave us His Holy Spirit
to live in us and bring these qualities to light. I am grateful, but there's another thing that needs to be
said.
“If God wanted us to just come to faith and then learn the
rest of the Christian life on our own, He’d never have given the Great
Commission or the Great Commandment”.
OK, I am about done…..it is late
A "C" in Baseball:
When I played baseball it was a little different story. I was pretty good with the glove and
played a decent third base. Now this
may be a case of “the older I get the better I was”, but I will go ahead and admit
that I stank at the plate lest I get too prideful talking about my skill as
an infielder.
As I did get better on defense, I got progressively worse
at the plate to the place where striking out, or flying out, or grounding out
because the norm. I would rather
stay out in the field as a third baseman that come in on offense and go to
bat. For me it was that I “got to
bat”. No, I mean I had to do it
not that it was exciting and I wanted to get to the plate. I was scared to bat because I was
pretty sure I would fail. After
coming close to having an eye put out when a sharply hit grounder skipped over my
glove and into my eyeglasses, shattering the lens into my eye, something changed. Stitches and blood and pain led me to
now be afraid of the ball at the plate and at third. You guessed it, rather than keep on trying, I quit.
When no one in the stands really cares whether you play or
not, when the coaches don’t really encourage you to stick with it and offer to
spend a little more time helping you get over the fear, and when you have
already failed at basketball and football, then baseball becomes the third
strike, and “you’re out of there”!
I was.
Years later, in my mid-40's, when I felt like a failure at marriage and was
trying to decide what to do, guess
what I concluded? I had no
marriage coaches, no body in the stands who cared and knew how to care about my
marriage, no skilled mentor to identify the problem and help fix it, and no one
that I knew who had a better marriage than mine, I began to think that I should just
quit and drive away. That’s
right. I almost came to the horrible
conclusion to leave; and maybe everyone would be better off, if I just kept going
and drove away.
Did you hear that lie?
“Everyone might be better off if I just left and started over somewhere
else.”
Truth is “no one would be better off”. In our country the divorce rate
combined with its" hell on earth impact" on so many children and adults alike
proves the point. God hates divorce;
He said so in the book of Malachi.
He loves us – single, married, divorced, re-married, not re-married, with
kids, without kids -in every demographic group you can list. But He wants divorce to stop. He wants marriages to reflect the love
He established to illumine a dark world where love is cold.
What grade will we get in Life and Love?
People do want to be loved and to give love, and I fully believe
the Gospel of Jesus Christ that saves us …the Jew first and then the
Gentile….though not more true when fleshed out in a loving home ---is nonetheless
more believable by those in a home where His love shines. And those
outside that home observing from more of a distance the love of God happening in your relationships wish to God that they had such a family, such a love,
such hope, and such a Savior who would love them too.
My prayerful hope and desire is to see this country reap the
blessings of the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord and to live loved and
give love freely…beginning at home in the power of the Holy Spirit.
God’s great love - expressed clearly in the homes of leaders and
followers alike - would lead the leaders to authenticity and relevance in
relationships and ministry and would help the followers to realize that they, since
they too have those who follow them, are, in fact, leaders with influence.
Perhaps the issue is not how many people I lead but to what
destination I am leading them. Are
we leading others to love as Jesus loves, to know His love for them personally
and to know that God loves them as much as He loves His own Son. John 17:23
When we know how loved we truly are, the Holy Spirit takes advantage of that
freedom to move us to freely give that love away…starting with our nearest
neighbors…those of our own home, extending to the uttermost parts of the earth.
