Your Own Coach

Life coaches are pop­u­lar in many parts of the coun­try — espe­cially in the West­ern United States. Life is a kind of game. The Apos­tle Paul once com­pared the Chris­t­ian life to var­i­ous sports (run­ning and box­ing). Like Paul, we live in a world of sports. From soc­cer moms to foot­ball wid­ows, every­one is involved or affected. Though I have never been much of an ath­lete, I appre­ci­ate the com­par­isons. Be a good sport and fol­low me on this…

There is an ele­ment of each sport in your life strug­gle. You run a marathon to get through a long, patient life of strug­gles. You wres­tle with your­self over dif­fi­cult eth­i­cal issues and choices. When accom­plish­ing an exact goal you some­times feel like you have hit a home­run or maybe you struck out. Some days you are on your game and some days you are off. By the time this day is over, you may notice that you have used a dozen or more sports metaphors to describe your own real­ity. Now let’s take a swing at the next idea…

You have a coach. Just like other coaches, he or she is on the side­lines observ­ing your game. Lis­ten to your coach. The coach will do a lot of observ­ing and not say all that much, but what is said you must hear. The coach is never wrong in this game. When you tune out the Divine Observer, you do so to your own peril — and you can’t make up for it by sheer effort. Don’t be a hot­dog quarterback…

There is a part of you that is your own coach, but if you let your ego take over the game you are sure to lose. The game of life is noisy. The coach is not always eas­ily heard. You have to know how to pick out that one voice among the many scream­ing detrac­tors (some yelling for you — most yelling against you). When you hear it, there is a cer­tain qual­ity to it. The coach is on your side. The coach sees the whole pic­ture — you don’t. Watch the ball…

The game of life has some rules but few time­outs. You play it with­out a time clock. You do not know exactly when the game will be over, so you have to play the whole game like it is the fourth quar­ter. Your oppo­nent has been in the game for thou­sands of years — you haven’t. That is why you need to lis­ten to the coach all the more. Now get back out there and give it your best shot!