Fear Not; Go Forward

Next Play

/ James / Leave a comment

As a coach, I am always reminding players to focus on the next play. It is easy to say, harder to do. What separates the elite athletes from most, is they are able to put the past behind them. They focus on whats next. We call it having a short memory. Too many times, athletes can not do that. They do not let it go. They keep recalling that horrible play over and over in their head. They keep reliving it, which causes them to make more bad plays. It just snowballs.

Recently, Dez Bryant of the Dallas Cowboys had this happen to him. In a game they had to win, he dropped a simple pass, then he fumbled the ball. This lead him to sitting on the sideline with a defeated look for the remainder of the game. I do not mean to just pick on Dez, I know sports radio has done enough of that over the past few weeks. I just wanted to point out that even professional athletes do it, not just the high school athletes I coach.

But it is not just athletes, we do it in this game of life as well. Think about when you had a bad day, which turned into a bad week, a bad month, etc.. Or one bad decision that lead into another bad decision, then another, till you find yourself at rock bottom. Wondering how in the world did you sink so low. How did it get to this.

In sports, coaches stress fundamentals. If the player does what they are suppose to do, they have a better chance of making a positive play. When they get away from those techniques that they were taught, negative things usually happen. It is the same for us. I believe most of us know the fundamentals on how we should live our lives. We just do not execute like we should. We do not stop the negative momentum from building up. We need to pause and tell ourselves – Next Play. We can not change the past, there is nothing we can do about yesterday. We can only control the controllable’s. So as we learn from yesterday, let us make sure we focus on today. Not tomorrow. Just today! Focus on just this next play.

Possess it!

/ James / Leave a comment

one-word-poster

New Year’s resolutions do not work for 9 out of ten people. It is amazing that so many people do it, even with a very low success rate. We are a week into the new year, are you still keeping yours? I personally gave up making them a couple of years ago. I also gave up making goals, but that is another post. Instead of resolutions, I now do the One Word campaign. It’s very simple, pick out One Word that can help guide your decisions or actions for this year. You can use it to help focus your life. The right word can guide you to lasting change.

I also like to tie my One Word to a verse for the year. At my church, we get to stand and tell everyone our year’s verse. Two years ago, my word was Courageous and my verse was Joshua 1:9 – “Be strong and of good courage; do not be afraid…for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.” It was helpful for me with all that I was facing. I made numerous life changing decisions that year, and with each decision, I asked myself, is this Courageous? I wanted to stop making decisions based on fear, that is what I had been doing my whole life. Then last year, my word was Forward; my verse was Exodus 14:13-15. I blogged about that experience with God telling me He had everything under control, I just needed to keep moving. I just needed to Go Forward!

I have been thinking about 2018’s word for a couple of weeks now. My previous words were from Israel’s journey from their captivity to their promised land. I felt I was supposed to stay with this theme again. I know I haven’t fully reached my promised land. I am out of the captivity I was in, but I know I haven’t fully arrived yet. I am not where God wants me to end up. But for the first time, I can see the plan that God has for me. And honestly, it is overwhelming, exciting, and scary at the same time. I am sure that is what the children of Israel felt when they were on the border of the promise land. God told them to “Possess the land” but they refused the first time. Because of that, they journeyed through the wilderness. God gave them their inheritance, their land, but they refused to possess it. They saw all the difficulties, hardships, troubles, and obstacles that laid before them. They did not have the faith that God had already gave them the land, they just needed to possess it!

So, as you can tell, my word for 2018 is Possess. My verse is Deuteronomy 1:21 – ‘Look, the Lord your God has set the land before you; go up and possess it, as the Lord God of your fathers has spoken to you; do not fear or be discouraged.’ I realize that it is an unusual verse to have for the year. I am sure that I will be the only one to use this verse. But it has everything in it to help me. It is telling me that God has set everything up for me, but I need to possess it! That does not mean it will be easy. Obstacles will surely come up. But as I have found out the last couple of years, the obstacle is the way. The verse then tells me as ‘God has spoken to me’. I believe he has given me a vision, I must continue to act on that vision. Then the last part, do not fear or be discouraged. This theme is in all my yearly verses. Fear kept me from reaching my full potential earlier in my life. I did not have the faith to overcome all those fears. So, as 2018 starts, I know I am at the border. I can choose to wait, and maybe have to wander the wilderness cause of my fear. Or I can be courageous, move forward and possess all that God is giving me!

Go Forward

/ James / Leave a comment

sea

I already had a plan for my next post, but at church on Sunday, we turned to a familiar passage in Exodus that I had highlighted a year before. It was Exodus 14:13 – 15. “Do not be afraid. Stand still, and see the salvation of the Lord, which He will accomplish for you today….The Lord will fight for you, and you shall hold your peace…Why do you cry to Me?…..Go Forward.”

The children of Israel were backed up to the Red Sea. They could see the Egyptians coming after them. They were cornered, between a rock and a hard place. Or more like between a deep sea, and a powerful Egyptian army. As soon as I saw the highlighted verses, a flood of memories came over me about my Red Sea.

I have coached football and basketball for awhile, but my main income has always come from doing computer work. My IT contract ended the year before and I was having trouble finding work. I firmly believe I didn’t find more IT work, cause that is not what I am supposed to be doing. We were completely out of money and were totally relying on God to provide food and pay bills (which He did!) One big bill was our rent payment, our landlord was great and worked with us. But we knew we were living in a house we could not afford. We worked out an agreement to be out of our house by Aug 1st. The problem was we had no place to move to. We had no money to pay the first months rent or even a security deposit. It felt like we were up against our Red Sea and the Egyptian army was closing fast.

During this time, God gave me two messages. The first was a video that talked about an old message titled “Right Song, Wrong Side.” After Israel crossed the Red Sea, they sang a song about Salvation of the Lord. Israel should have sang that song before the Red Sea was parted, not after they crossed. I was determined to sing God’s praises before cause I knew he would part our Red Sea. I then came upon Exodus 14 about a week before August 1st. Even though we were praying relentlessly about our job and living situation, we were not preparing ourselves to move. “Why do you cry to me?..Go Forward” felt like a personal message directly to me! In today’s words, I was reading, “I got this, Do what you need to do.” I got up, informed the family that I was not sure where we were going, but we needed to be packed and ready to move.

The Thursday before we had to be out, I was looking online for centers or services that could help us. I was making calls, sending emails but all told me that they couldn’t help till we were officially homeless. I needed to get back with them on Monday. While searching, I saw an ad for Catholic Charities. I went to their website and it suggested to go to their offices instead of calling. I figured they would tell me the same thing, but I got up and went to their location. They asked if I had ever served in the military, I told them I had. A very nice lady from their Veteran Affairs department came out and talked to me. I explained our situation and her first question to me was, “How are you not freaking out?” I chuckled and told her, “I just feel a peace that God is going to provide and take care of us.” She smiled and told me, “Well, God has led you to the right place”. She started listing all that they were going to do for my family. They supplied us with a moving truck, a large storage facility for all our stuff, and put my family in a hotel. She told me they would pay my deposit and rent till we got back on our feet. They would pay all our deposits on all our utilities and any thing that was needed to get us in a house. Now, I am not a guy who cries easily, but I couldn’t help myself as she was listing all this out. This was by far, more than we could have ever hoped for. I could barely get all this out when I called my wife as I left the building.

God brought us through that situation, just like he parted the Red Sea and had Israel cross over on dry land. The whole time, I just knew He was going to. I didn’t know how God was going to do it. But I knew He was. I can honestly say, I have never felt such peace through a crisis as I did with this. People who knew what was going on, couldn’t believe how calm my wife and I were about it. Everyone told us how they would be freaking out. It also didn’t take long for God to provide a house and the right job that still allowed me to coach. I used to have so much anxiety about my career, money, and all the things we fret over these days. But I now know that worrying is pointless. The words “Fear Not” are in the Bible more than 365 times. So you could read a different verse to “Fear Not” every day of the year. So remember, when you are up against your Red Sea, Remember who is in control! There is such a peace when you do.

Commit, Surrender and Trust!