Developing Bad Habits

Recently it came to my attention that I have been coaching soccer for nearly twenty-five years now.  Reflecting on this longevity, I realized that there is one great truth all coaches come to understand.  People of all ages are individuals and have their own will.  There is a part of the human makeup that believes it knows the best course of action at any given moment and this character wants the freedom to express that belief.  No matter how we coach and train children to develop in our image, the creativity inherent in carnal DNA makes them decide against certain things they are taught.

Yahweh did not comprehend why mankind is like this.  In Deuteronomy 1:20-33, the Father vents His frustration towards the children of Yisrael who were brought forth from Egypt.  He promised to give them a land full of fruit, milk and honey, and He guided them with cloud by day and fire by night – and yet and still – they “rebelled against the commandment” and as He says, “ye murmured in your tents.”

This murmuring is complaining.  This murmuring is doubt.  This murmuring is a design in the heart to do things independently of the Lord’s will.

Isaiah 30:8-9 ‘Now go, write it before them in a table, and note it in a book, that it may be for the time to come for ever and ever; that this is a rebellious people, lying children, children that will not hear the law of Yahweh.’

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In sports, a good coach will adapt his will in some respects to the creative potential of his players.  A good coach wants his players to improvise occasionally and use their talents outside the boundaries of the team.  And truthfully, these are the spectacular moments, the highlights when both spectators and coaches watch in awe as the players perform magnificent feats wholly unexpected but priceless. 

Playing consistently within the confines of regulations and rules can be safe and profitable but it can also be unimaginative and mundane.  How could that be pleasing to the Lord?

Revelation 4:11 ‘Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honor and power: for thou hast created all things, and for Thy pleasure they are and were created.’

The Lord doesn’t want you walking through life like a precision robot whose moves are predictable and regimented.  He gave you powerful inspiration, breath from His lungs and knowledge from His mind, to take the things of this world and make the great garden a better place for everyone.  There was only one problem with this freedom.

Genesis 6:5 ‘And the Creator saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.’

Mankind thought it wiser to use his creativity to profit and benefit himself.  Mankind refused to use the creativity he had been blessed with to benefit all of mankind.  Mankind became greedy and proud, full of selfishness, rage and hate.  Mankind justified his reasons to injure, forsake and kill his brother in the world.

Genesis 6:11 ‘The earth also was corrupt before the Creator and the earth was filled with violence.’

Look around the world today.  Violence and rebellion is everywhere.  The human body is never content with such things as it has.  The human body alone, without the spirit of the Lord, is incapable of being charitable and forgiving.  If we look long enough and hard enough at the world, we become jaded by it.  We need a coach in life who understands our rebellion and knows when to give us room to improvise and when to reel us back in and spank us on the hand.

Luke 23:34 ‘Then said Yahshua, Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.’

Yahweh has glorified His Son Yahshua by giving Him the team. 

The world has been placed in Yahshua’s hands and it is solely up to Him who plays in the next game and who gets cut.

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To understand Coach Christ better, we have to first realize that Coach Yahweh had little patience with mistakes.  Yahweh’s temper made Vince Lombardi and Bobby Knight look tame.  Yahweh wanted to believe it was possible in the world He created, to live perfectly and succeed perfectly.  So to that end, Yahweh put His Son in the game and His Son was perfect.  His Son played the game of life to perfection.  He did everything the way Yahweh wanted us to do it.

John 6:38 ‘For I came down from heaven, not to do Mine own will, but the will of Him that sent Me.’

The thing we want to learn about Yahshua is His humility.  Like us, Yahshua had a will that was different than His Father.  Yahshua had an idea in His head how things should be done on earth.  BUT, Yahshua decided not to do His own will – He fought against His own will.  I think by people putting “God and Jesus” together, they often forget that Yahshua had a will of His own that was different than His Father’s will.

Yahweh hoped that we (the world) would reverence His Son’s magnificent obedience and imitate it, and be saved.

John 3:16 ‘For Yahweh so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on Him should not perish but have everlasting life.’

But as the next few verses in John tell us, mankind loved darkness rather than light, and they rejected the Son who was lifted up to be a righteous example.  Mankind crucified the perfect light thinking they could extinguish the truth.  But they were wrong.

John 17:4-5 ‘I have glorified Thee on the earth:  I have finished the work which Thou gavest Me to do.  And now, O Father, glorify Thou Me with Thine Own Self with the glory which I had with Thee before the world was.’

Hebrews 2:9 ‘But we see Yahshua, Who was made a little lower than the angels, for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honor, that He by the grace of Yahweh should taste death for every man.’

Christ is the Captain of our salvation, our new Coach.  Yahweh has given the team over to His Son who understands better how to judge our misgivings and rebellious nature.  He knows what it is like to resist temptation and, if you remember what I stated earlier, He has a few ideas of His own on how this world should work. 

Now He is in charge and now we can improvise because “law” no longer dictates the game.  The Coach is okay with us using our talents to better others and the world.

Really, the only rule in place now is not a new rule at all.

John 13:34-35 ‘A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another.  By this shall all men know that ye are My disciples, if ye have love one to another.’

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When I coach soccer, I like having intelligent, obedient, hardworking players.  I like the kind of player that tries to do everything I ask them to do without murmurings or grief.  But life gives you few if any of these types of players.  Even the best players have a temper, a will and a desire to do “bonehead” things now and again.  Sometimes you just stand and stare and wondering what was going through their heads when they did this or that – things you taught them not to do.

In life, people generally regard one another in similar fashions.  I think one of my greatest peeves with many in this world is embracing the idea that lazy people shouldn’t be able to play and should be cut.  We tend to look at them as the worst players in life and the ones deserving punishment.  As the conservatives in politics cry consistently, “Cut them!”

I never saw it that way.  I have coached plenty of lazy players.  I have coached plenty of players that just didn’t have that drive in them to push themselves to excel – and you know what – it was okay.  Life is more than excelling.  They got some minutes, they touched the ball now and then, and they had fun interacting with those who did try hard.  Yes, there could be tension at times, but it is a coach’s job to keep reminding everyone that they are all on the same team and whether we like it or not, we have different types of players on the team.  We just have to find a way to incorporate everyone.

Christ told us in Matthew 26:11 that the poor would be with us always.  As we are warned in James 2:6, we best not despise the poor; we best not despise those who just don’t have the advantages, the drive or the skill to shine.  Whatever the reason, they are still part of the team – the body.

No, for me the worst players to coach were the arrogant ones, the ones that were proud, disrespectful and disobedient.  These players were selfish with the ball and their playing time.  They didn’t care about their teammates and had no respect for their opponents.  Being gifted at a young age, they developed bad habits like not sharing the ball, not passing the ball, running through people rather than learning how to make fakes and get around them.  These kids always wanted to win like bulls in a china shop and they didn’t mind utterly destroying an inferior opponent just to get a little taste of glory.  They wanted to run up the score on hapless teams.  They wanted to score six, seven, or eight goals themselves against such inferior teams.  They would have rude words and smug looks for me and their teammates when they we told to restrain themselves, control themselves, pull back from shooting and scoring and work on other aspects of their game.  They hated it if they were told to only play defense.  In practice, this sort of player also tends to fight with their teammates and belittle the ones who are overweight, slow, lazy and unskilled.  They find fault in everyone else and when the team loses they point fingers at everyone but themselves.  They think they are the only chance the team has of winning.

To tell you the truth, I don’t care if that kid is the best player on the field – I don’t want him.

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1Corinthians 12:25 ‘That there should be no schism in the body; but that the members should have the same care one for another.’

We live in a world of subdivisions.  We have black and white, we have male and female, we have rich and poor, we have American and Chinese.  We divide ourselves up into these groups or team for a thousand various reasons and we treat everyone outside the divisions an opponent after our power and wealth.

For Christians, those barriers must all come down.

Galatians 3:27-28 ‘For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ.  There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in the Messiyah Yahshua.’

We have left the game of life to do battle in the war over souls.

Ephesians 6:12 ‘For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.’

It is easy in this life to develop bad habits.  If we look long and hard enough at this life, we can start to justify abject behaviors that go completely against the will of our coach, our captain, our Messiyah.  Yes, Yahshua wants us to improvise and use our talents and not fear making some mistakes along the way.  But He also wants us to regard the needs of everyone in this life with respect and with love – even our enemies – because they aren’t really the enemy.

As Christians, we need to pray, read and listen to His voice more.  We need to seek out ways to tame the tempting vices which so easily beset us, and get back in the habit of faithful service to others.

Psalms 73:2-3 ‘But as for me, my feet were almost gone; My steps had well nigh slipped.  For I was envious at the foolish, when I saw the prosperity of the wicked.’

These are the unholy ones who let pride and violence cover them; protect them.  They succeed in this life because they are willing to keep taking things, they are willing to keep pushing people, they are willing to keep fighting no matter who gets injured, hurt or killed by their determination.

Psalms 73:8 ‘They are corrupt, and speak wickedly concerning oppression: They speak loftily.’

When you score eight goals in a single game against an inferior opponent, you have wickedly oppressed your opponent.  You are speaking loftily about your own talents and seeking glory and fame.  When your whole team racks up way more points than are needed with little regard for the feelings and disheartened emotions of the opponent, you have wickedly oppressed your opponent.  Oppression comes in many forms.

Those who have too much of this world’s wealth and too much of this world’s resources, and keep everyone else working for them at meager wages with few if any benefits, are oppressing.

Psalms 73:12 ‘Behold, these are the ungodly, who prosper in the world; they increase in riches.’

Coach Yahshua expects us to behave like Him and respect our teammates as well as our opponents.  We are instructed to do good to them all and play this life the way He played it – fairly, honestly and kindly.

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Many of those players I saw at a young age who could blow by everyone, out running, out gunning, and acting like a one-man-wrecking crew, didn’t do very good when they got older.  They never learned how to share the ball, make any special moves.  As their opponents got stronger and faster and learned to play in a team system of defense, the selfish superstar at a young age could no longer outrun or overpower everyone.  They couldn’t control the ball in tight spaces because they were so used to being out in the open.  They couldn’t pass the ball accurately because there never was a reason to pass it before.  Even their shooting is woeful because the keepers used to be small and afraid of everything kicked at them; but now they are large and agile and difficult to beat.

In a world where people keep calling for individuals to excel, for the collective will of the people to be silenced, an organized will can stop a selfish heart.

Let’s clean up our bad habit of thinking that success in this world is the only means by which to measure one another.  We are after all in the same body, the same world and we are brothers.

1John 4:20 ‘If a man say, I love Yahweh, and hateth his brother, he is a liar: for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love Yahweh whom he hath not seen?’

John 15:12 ‘This is My commandment, That ye love one another as I have loved you.’

That is Yahshua’s will.  No more eye for an eye or tooth for a tooth.  From now on, we are free to use forgiveness, compassion and immeasurable charity from a willing and giving heart to win.

Let’s all get in the habit of imitating our coach.

Hebrews 12:14 ‘Follow peace with all men . . .’

Amen