A Willing Athlete

Just a few weeks ago, we did something called “Disaster Day” for Floor Exercise in gymnastics. This is where I challenge the gymnasts and throw distractions and small disasters in their way as they perform their routines. I do it because I’ve told them that anything can happen at a meet, and despite all of our technology, the music still cuts out, and people go where they are not supposed to. It doesn’t happen often that a music track skips, fails to play, or the wrong music gets played, or someone walks across the floor, but it does happen, and Lord help the poor gymnast that it happens to, usually they miss a beat, or hesitate, or mess up a skill they have worked hours and hours on because of it. So we do Disaster Day to give the gymnasts a taste of what could be, so that when it happens, they are all the more prepared for it.

At the end of this most recent Disaster Day as I explained that the show must go on regardless, I was asked by one of my gymnasts, “Do we ever just stop our routine? What if the fire alarm goes off?” And my answer was, “Only if your coach tells you to. You know what my voice sounds like yelling at you, you know the sound of all your coaches’ voices, so if the fire alarm goes off, you keep going until your coach tells you to stop.”

Perhaps the greatest struggle a gymnast has is the millions of voices speaking into their lives. Gymnastics isn’t as cool a sport as ­­(insert whatever sport you can think of). You need to work harder to be as good as her. You have practice on Friday night—that sucks! I’m doing this, I think you should do this too and not gymnastics. Nobody comes to your meets, but everyone watches this sport all the time. The popular girls do this sport, not gymnastics. You always have practice. This cost a lot of money. If you don’t get your grades up, you can’t go to practice.

These voices come from the doubts and fears within ourselves, from parents, other family members, and friends. There are always a dozen or so reasons to not make it to practice, and once in the gym, there are hundreds of reasons to be discouraged and feel inadequate. The biggest obstacles I face with gymnasts sometimes, are overcoming the voices of their parents telling them that they are perfect already, or that they should work harder to be like (insert name of gymnast who is better than them). If any of us were perfect, we wouldn’t need to practice, because we would be like God. And comparing ourselves to one another is like pouring water on the fire.

It’s the same with our spiritual lives too. There are so many voices telling us what is right, wrong, good, and bad about ourselves, what we are doing, and our lives that sometimes it is hard to hear God’s voice, or even know what His voice sounds like. The athlete in training must be willing to be trust their coach, and listen to their voice in a noisy world.

But who are you, a human being, to talk back to God?

“Shall what is formed say to the one who formed it,

‘Why did you make me like this’?”

Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay

some pottery for special purposes and some for common use? (Romans 9:20-21)

Gymnastics is an individual sport. We may compete as a team sometimes, but overall, the medals are handed out to individuals, not teams. Each gymnast is different, and has different weaknesses and strengths. A coach has to develop the strengths but also strengthen the weaknesses if they want to have a well-rounded gymnast that is able to grow and continue to learn. Not addressing a gymnast’s weaknesses will stunt their growth in the sport. The gymnast, though, has to trust their coach when they are stuck in their weaknesses. There is nothing harder than doing something that is already painfully hard over and over and over again for no apparent reason.

God loves us too much to let us to let our growth be stunted by doubts, fears, and half-truths. When we feel like we are facing the same trials over and over perhaps we need to realize that God is refining us and strengthening us. I struggle with believing I am good enough for others to love. It makes me seek out the approval of others, rather than the approval of God. Over the past year though, God has been training this weakness and making it stronger. Every time I would doubt myself, and who I am, God has brought something wonderful out of the situation as a way of saying, “I created you just right, you are good enough for me, and I have a plan and purpose for your life that you don’t have to stress after.” The temptation is still there, but lately I haven’t been falling into the same traps. The weak muscles have been refined and toned through repetition and I have made tentative progress in this area.

Not trusting our great Heavenly Coach also puts us at risk. We will justify our position, argue our case, and doubt the goodness of God the Father which leads us away from His love, rather than into it. But who are you, a human being to talk back to God? I’m not saying we should do things blindly, no, we need to ask questions, and search for answers and meaning, and seek to understand. But there’s a difference when we say, “I don’t think that is right,” and “I don’t understand why that is right.” One opens up conversation which can give rise to understanding. The other shuts down any avenue for relationship because it seeks a higher position of authority. When we refuse to trust our coach, we aren’t hurting them, we are hurting ourselves.

When one of my gymnasts is struggling with a new skill, I always tell them to try doing several and come back to me for feedback. The ones that I have been coaching for several years have learned that parents and other gymnasts can say what they want, but it is the coach’s voice that matters when they are wanting to know how they are doing, and how to be better. One of the greatest things a gymnast can learn is to trust the coach. To hear their voice, and trust their voice above all the others in the world, even those of their parents. In this life of faith, we have to know what Jesus’ voice sounds like and be willing to trust that voice.

My sheep know my voice; I know them, and they follow me. (John 10:27)

We need to know God’s voice and trust it. When He gives us tasks or challenges to train us and refine us, we need to trust that He is good and is pushing us to be the best we can be. God is forming us into the best version of ourselves, and it is the one that truly reflects the holiness and righteousness of Jesus. We must be willing, though: willing to trust; willing to be vulnerable; willing to believe that God is on our side; and willing to do whatever it takes to get closer and closer to the One who will bring us into glory.

A Knowledgable Coach

I’ve wanted to write this series for a while, but always had trouble really putting my thoughts into words. And it doesn’t quite help that the Bible doesn’t really talk about coaching anywhere. However, it does have a lot to say about learning and growing, and if we are going to learn and grow then we need a teacher or a coach to help guide and direct us.

Most of the inspiration for this series comes from the fact that I have been coaching gymnastics for the past seven and a half years, with some breaks in there for, you know, giving birth, and figuring out how to be a mom. I’ve learned some incredible things from my gymnasts about trust, learning, and the importance of showing up. I’ve grown as a person, and in my own faith as I’ve seen that just as I coach and instruct others, God is coaching and instructing me.

In my own experience, in order for an athlete of any sport to grow and be successful, they need a knowledgeable coach. A coach that knows the athlete, the sport and its rules, and how to strengthen the athlete’s weaknesses and take full advantage of their strengths. In gymnastics especially, there is a special bond that can develop between the coach and the student. There aren’t many sports where a kid will have the same coach for five, ten, or fifteen years. This relationship is built on grace, love, and the commitment to become something better than we already are. It becomes infused with trust and hope.

There are requirements for both the athlete and coach in this relationship. The requirements of the athlete will be covered in the next post, in this post I want to study more about the coach. As I mentioned before, the coach must be knowledgeable, and be able to use this knowledge to the benefit of the athlete. Though we talk about “teams” in gymnastics, truly it is an individual sport, and as a coach, I must know my gymnasts. I must know how to communicate with them so they understand what I want them to do and work on. I must be able to see past the mess ups, the mistakes, the falls, the injuries, and the frustration to what can and will be in time. I must know their weaknesses and struggles, and how to help them through these and strengthen them. I must know the rules of the sport; the values of skills, and how they connect with other skills. I must know each routine and be willing to take the time to scrutinize every aspect of their performance so that they can score higher. I must know how to push the gymnast beyond what she believed was possible so she can glimpse the glory of the future.

It’s a lot of work. There is a lot of time spent outside the gym planning and thinking through what needs to be done. But if I think I am working hard to help my gymnasts, then I have to believe that God is working even harder to bring me into the perfect righteousness that Christ covers me with. He will not let your foot slip—he who watches over you will not slumber (Psalm 121:3). God is always working behind the scenes to give us the experiences that will strengthen our faith, and shape our hearts.

I’ve made my mistakes coaching. I haven’t always been understanding or taken the time to know my gymnasts. Sometimes I pushed them in the wrong direction, sometimes they got hurt on my watch, and sometimes I couldn’t get past the mistakes. But this series is not about how we mess up as humans, it’s about how God doesn’t mess up, and is the best coach we will ever have and know. Psalm 139: 1-4 and 13-16 show that He knows us inside and out:

¹ You have searched me, Lord,
    and you know me.
² You know when I sit and when I rise;
    you perceive my thoughts from afar.
³ You discern my going out and my lying down;
    you are familiar with all my ways.
⁴ Before a word is on my tongue
    you, Lord, know it completely.

¹³ For you created my inmost being;
    you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
¹⁴ I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
    your works are wonderful,
    I know that full well.
¹⁵ My frame was not hidden from you
    when I was made in the secret place,
    when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.
¹⁶ Your eyes saw my unformed body;
    all the days ordained for me were written in your book
    before one of them came to be.

God knows us perfectly because He created us! He is familiar with all my ways. He knows where I am going to try and cut corners and that maybe I only did forty five pushups instead of fifty. He knows when I am going to agree and do the work that He has set before me to make me a better version of myself, and when I am going to argue with Him over it. He knows my limitations because He chose them for me. He knew I would struggle with everything I struggle with because all the days ordained for me were written in your book. These struggles and limitations are not imperfections because God has created me exactly as He wanted me to be. He knows me perfectly: all my strengths, weaknesses, abilities, and how to motivate me to work on what He wants me to do.

God is perfectly qualified to coach me because of His great knowledge of me, and because He created the world we live in. He planned out the “rules” for salvation and sanctification long, long ago, and is committed to seeing me through them. Paul tells us, “May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through…The one who calls you is faithful, and he will do it (1 Thessalonians 5:23-24).” God is committed to coaching me through this life so that I will be sanctified and live into the righteousness of Christ which already covers me and cleanses me of sin.

When I have a gymnast learning a new skill, there are so many things that go into it: the takeoff, the landing, and their form, arm and leg placement. When they do it better than they have before, I congratulate them, but also point out that they still need to work on various components to reach the expected standard. I don’t just say, “That’s good enough for you,” I call them to go higher, to dig deeper, and to become stronger, so they can execute the skill flawlessly. God isn’t going to just let me get away with what is “good enough” for me, He calls me to a higher standard and pushes me beyond what I believe I am capable of so that I can see His dedication to me and His strength and power displayed in me.

Our coach is there to encourage us, and bring out the best in us. Sometimes training is hard, and going the extra mile just sucks. Sometimes the coach pushes us to exhaustion because the coach knows that our hearts, minds, and bodies, will be tougher and stronger the next time around. That’s the funny thing with our bodies. We have to push ourselves to weakness in order to be stronger. When we walk through pain, it doesn’t mean our coach is our enemy, it means our coach is putting us through training that will make us not just physically stronger, but spiritually stronger. Horatio Spafford penned the wonderful hymn, It is Well with my Soul, as he traveled to meet his grieving wife after losing his four daughters in a shipwreck. Before this, he had been financially ruined in the 1871 Great Chicago Fire and following recession. Spafford definitely walked through hard places. He was brought to his knees in weakness and grief again and again, but it all proved to be the hard training of a masterful coach who later drew this confession out of him:

When peace like a river, attendeth my way,

When sorrows like seas billows roll;

Whatever my lot, Thou hast taught me to say

It is well, it is well, with my soul.

Our heavenly Father, our great coach, is training us to see Him in all aspects of life and to trust His power and sovereignty. He is training us to be His servants, and sanctifying us for His heavenly purposes. He is by our side, and will be by our side at all times throughout our lives.  Amen and Amen!