I was reading one of my devotion books the other day about famous fathers. A phrase caught my eye that said, “A famous man is someone whose children love him.” I added to that and said, “A blessed child is one whose parents truly love them and God’s love is the foundation.” When you get to be my age you tend to reflect on life and wish you would have done things a little differently in the past. I think we have all messed up along the journey of life.
I coached baseball for several years, but before that I was fortunate to have a few good coaches along the way. I learned some things that stuck with me about the game, but more importantly I learned some life lessons from them. Coach Pete and Coach Harry taught me to be a good teammate, enjoy the game, play hard, and show respect to both teammates and opponents. In grade school I had a coach who was also my teacher. Respectfully, he didn’t know much about basketball. However, he taught us how to act, have fun, and follow orders. We knew he cared for us, and we learned to appreciate his authority because we knew he always had our best interests at heart.
Coach Pete and Coach Harry would always walk by and put an arm my shoulders and say, “You are doing good. Keep it up.” But if things were not going too good, they would still put their arms on my shoulders and say, “You are doing some good things out there, but why don’t we try it this way. Give it a try.” Now, if we disrespected the umpire, teammate, or opponent they would talk a little sterner.
My dad gave me instructions in a way that I respected. He did it in a kind way as long as I deserved it. Then I thought about God, our heavenly father, who guides us. I thought sometimes Coach God would want to call a timeout and chew us out real good because we didn’t listen and acted like jerks. Instead, He puts His arm around our shoulders and reminds us of our blessings and the good things and how we need to change some things.
Those are the things I remember about my coaches and parents. They all stood with me, strengthened me, and gave me guidance. God wants to always be on our side in the good times and bad. He wants a relationship like we had with our coaches, teammates, and best friends. 2 Timothy 4:17 says,
“But the Lord stood at my side and gave me strength, so that through me the message might be fully proclaimed and all the Gentiles might hear it. And I was delivered from the lion’s mouth.”
We may not be called to preach, but we are called to live our lives as a testimony for our Lord and Savior to what He has done in our lives. So, this reminded me to just put my arm around a friend, our kids, or grandkids if they are struggling and let them know we are in it with them and give them encouragement. Those life lessons from those coaches were worth it. And just maybe God was working through those coaches I had so I would listen and let them help me. Be a good coach and show some compassion to those we love that may need some help.