Determination

As I’ve mentioned in this space before, I coach a fourth-grade boys' basketball team.   This past weekend was our final weekend of the season, a weekend of tournament that involved seven other fourth-grade teams.

The first game on Saturday the boys played pretty well but not up to their potential.  Yet, they battled through a number of mistakes and won the game.

A few hours later we got our second shot for the day.  I’m not sure if it was the long layoff or what, but the boys came out with no emotion at all in that game.  They really lacked any fire, and that lack of fire caused them to lose a close game by 3.  I then told the boys after the game that if they don’t want to be there then don’t come back on Sunday, but if they want to give me everything they have and a fire to win, then show up and we’ll get to work.

So we come back to the tournament on Sunday and all the boys show up, and they have a different look in their eyes.  They are all focused on beating a team that is undefeated all season long.  A team that hasn’t scored fewer than 40 points in any game they’ve played this season.  A team that had beat us 44-19 earlier in the season.  Not only did we take the fight to this team, but we had them on the ropes throughout the game.  We were losing 4-2 at half time and only gave up 20 points to them in the entire game.  No, we didn’t win, but that effort allowed us to win a tie breaker that put us in the semifinals.

That semifinal game pitted us against a team that has already beat us twice this year, both times in very close games.  We’ve battled them very tough every time we’ve played them and this game was no different.  My boys worked extremely hard, and again a lack of putting the ball through the rim was what killed our chances.  We lost by three points in yet another close game.

My point in rehashing the weekend with you is to show you that with hard work anything is possible.  This team has a record this season of 3-8.  Yet, that doesn’t tell you the whole story.  They were determined to get better and determined to fight for all they were worth.  Week after week this season they wanted to get better, and although we didn’t often come out on the winning side of things, it didn’t slow these boys down.  They kept working hard, and as they kept fighting week after week, they improved.  The final record might not show it, but they are a group of kids that the rest of the NOL better be ready to battle for years to come.

I will use this team as a reminder to myself to never give up and to continue to improve myself every day in my Christian walk.  If I continue to be determined to be better, then there is no stopping me in the future.  I have valued the time that I’ve spent with these boys and am proud of each and every one of them.  As I told them on Sunday, it’s only eight months until we start it all over again.  They need to keep working on their own until we get the team back together again in November…a fact that I know will be followed by all of these determined boys.

Determination

This past weekend I was assistant coaching my oldest son’s sixth grade basketball team in a tournament that was going to end our season.  We’d have a rough season overall, only winning our first game of the year and none since then.  As coaches we’d felt that we had a chance in many of the games, but there was a hurdle that the team just couldn’t get past, something we couldn’t figure out ourselves.

So we go into the round robin part of the tournament, where we were going to play the other three teams in our side of the bracket.  Our first opponent is a team from our league who had beat us by over 20 points in both games that we’d played them previously.  The boys started out pretty well, but we found ourselves down at halftime.  We made some adjustments, but that didn’t seem to help in the end and we lost that first game.  Then the second game we played a team that we hadn’t played previously, and although we as coaches thought we could win, we got ourselves in a hole and we saw that familiar look on the boy’s faces – defeat.  That look was a premonition as it ended up that we lost to them as well. 

So at the end of the first day we were 0-2, with one more game to play.  The head coach wasn’t gentle with the boys after the first game, saying pretty much exactly how I felt as well.  We both knew that the boys had all the talent in the world, but they weren’t handling adversity well and we didn’t know if they had the will to win.  It was pretty much laid out that if they weren’t going to be there to win, then to not come back on Sunday to play. 

Well, it was Sunday’s game time, and all of the boys were there.  It seemed like they were different people when they showed up.  They looked determined to win this game, and they were going to do what it took to get a victory.  They had their ups and downs throughout the game, with the lead going back and forth between the two teams.  Then a big change occurred.  The boys believed they could win the game.  They weren’t going to let anyone take this victory from them, and eventually with that determination came something that they really needed…a victory.  They finished the season at something like 2-10, but the fact that their hard work paid off seemed to give them the feeling that the season was a success.

I tell you this story from the weekend because I think this mirrors the spiritual lives that Christians live.  We work hard at the beginning and get an early victory in our lives, be it turning from a sin that has been with us for years or many other victories that would can obtain in Christ.  The problem with that early victory is that often times that gets the enemy's attention and then we have to deal with adversity.  Often times that tests our character, and those hard times can lead us to feeling defeated and possibly even to giving up on the one gift that we’ve all been given in our lives that means the most:  salvation.  But, God is there coaching us and telling us to show up and get back out there and finish the game.  He doesn’t want us to quit.  He wants us to go out there and keep scraping and clawing our way to the top, knowing full well that the Holy Spirit will be there with us throughout our battles.  God never promised that our lives would be easy when we accepted Jesus into our lives.  He never said that the enemy wouldn’t attack, in fact it’s written that the exact opposite would happen.  Our goal, as Christians, should be to keep gaining victories no matter how hard we have to work.  We can’t give up, and being a Christian and living your life for Him isn’t for wimps.   

Just as this sixth grade team did this weekend, they fought through the adversity with the determination to reach their goal of getting a victory.  Now, we as Christians are called to do the same.  Go out and get victory after victory for Christ.  Go out determined not to let the enemy stop you from getting to your goals, no matter what is thrown in the way.