Drawing Up Flag Football Plays on A Friday Night
Flag football blog
You know what I’m doing right now? I’m drawing up flag football plays. It’s 10pm on Friday night and, in true middle aged dad fashion, I’m thinking about my son’s flag football game tomorrow.
I love coaching him in football. This may be the last season that I get to coach him (school football starts next year) and so I’m soaking up every minute. I’m really going to miss this.
Tomorrow will be a very tough game. We are both good teams that have played well. We’re currently sitting 1st and 2nd in our league. I can almost guarantee you that the losing team will have a good portion of their team in tears. And here’s the crazy part-I’m looking forward to the lessons that can come from that. I’m looking forward to talking to the young men about how there are winners and losers in sports-that’s the nature of the game. I’m looking forward to hugging the kids that are crying and telling them how well they played and tell them all the great things they’ve done…regardless of whose team they’re on.
It’s the nature of sports that we don’t do everything well so please don’t think that we don’t hold our kids accountable for mistakes. Anytime there is a defense it means it’s one person’s job to get something done and the other person’s job is to not let them do that. However, these are still 11 and 12 year olds. The time is quickly approaching when the tone will change after their losses and after their mistakes. I believe now is the time that we build up their resistance to the creeping dread that tears at their love of sports and competing. It’s that monster that tears at kids hearts and minds off the field, not allowing them to move on and learn. It’s the monster that has driven so many kids away from sports.
I really struggled to learn to separate who I was and what I did as I was growing up. I took my failures on the field so hard that it made it impossible to function off of it. Geez, I’m still that guy that is in a bad mood when the team he roots for loses! But with every second that I’m around those young men I try to teach them that hard work is tough but rewarding, winning is fun but not everything, and who they are is not determined by their sport but rather revealed in it.
I’ve been asked to lead the devotional for tomorrow for the league before the games. I’ve been thinking about this from the moment I was asked. I’ve had to go over it a few times because I feel like there’s so much I want to say to these young men with just a few games left in the season. I’ve decided to talk about John 13:34-35 where Jesus says “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”
We come in all different shapes and sizes. Some own businesses, some work for other people. Some have no money and some have more money than we could even dream of. Some walk off the field happy after winning, and some walk off the field sad after losing. But Jesus said that we won’t be known as a follower of Christ by our successes or even our failures. Rather we’ll be recognized by how we love one another.
Isn’t that amazing? Isn’t it amazing that the things that we hold against ourselves or the things we define ourselves by aren’t the way in which we will be recognized as disciples of Christ? Does that mean those things don’t matter? No. But it does mean that they are secondary. Sure we can use what we have and what we know to better show love to those around us, but in the end the key characteristic of discipleship is not giving money to churches or speaking in front of audiences about Jesus or making sure our bumper stickers have a fish on them. No, THE ONE DEFINING CHARACTERISTIC IS LOVE.
Read the capital letters again.
What is it that you allow to hold you back in how you view yourself in Christ? What is it that makes you think you aren’t good enough or doing enough? Those things: they don’t define you in Christ. I hope that’s a relief. I hope there’s a weight that just lifted off your undoubtably tired shoulders.
It comes down to one simple question. Are you showing love?
Exactly half of the kids that hear that tomorrow will walk off the field with their family after losing a football game. Wouldn’t it be amazing if they walked off and defined themselves by the way they loved others than by the outcome of that game?