"The righteous keep moving forward and those with clean hands become stronger and stronger." (Job 17:9)

Early in my coaching career, I had an incident at practice in which I took out my frustrations on my team, and I found myself struggling to move forward afterwards. It was a typical day in mid-January, and practice had started off with all sorts of hiccups. I was late getting to practice due to getting caught up dealing with a school issue. Once I got to the wrestling room, I was immediately inundated with kids telling me they were too hurt to practice, and my team managers were having drama issues that they felt I needed to be aware of. The energy level of the team was low from the first whistle. Their feet were heavy, and their attitudes were lackadaisical. Even my captains and returning lettermen were failing to live up to my standard that day.

I felt like I was wasting time, and I was resentful that they all seemed to be okay with wasting time. Even as a young coach, I knew that I couldn't yell and scream and be angry and expect positive things to happen, so I tried to give them some initial words of encouragement. However, those words were fruitless, and even then, my threats of extra conditioning did nothing to change the tone. It came to a boiling point, and I lost my temper. I blew the whistle extra loud and extra long. The boys stopped their drills and stared at me. "Go home," I said. "You're wasting my time. We're done." No one moved. The disbelief was apparent in their eyes and in their stillness. "Go home!" I yelled, and threw my whistle against the wall. Kids jumped up and quietly left the practice room. I asked an assistant to follow them into the locker room to supervise and make sure they cleaned up and left the school.

After the team had all left, I sat in the coach's office, my hands shaking and my heart racing. I had a talk with my staff, and they agreed that the team deserved to be yelled at. I don't know if I agreed with them, however. Through the tension and anxiety and anger, I tried my best to think about what I would do or say the next day at practice. I knew that I had to focus on moving forward. I had handled things poorly; I preach all the time that we should focus on the things we can control: our attitudes and our actions. I'd let my poor attitude take over and lead to poor actions. The next practice needed to be one in which we came together as a team and refocused our objectives. We had to persevere, and I needed the team to discover how important it is to keep their feet on the path, to keep their feet moving.

It's an allegory for our Christian lives. In order to walk the paths of faith, holiness, and truth, we needed to keep moving forward. Over the years, I've learned that God gives us strength and encouragement when we need it most. Our faith through all that happens, must be kept and we must reset our journeys so that we are on the right path. In doing so, God will continue to guide us.

The dark jagged road, again speaking metaphorically, is the path away from God, and it is characterized by loss of control, giving in to our negative emotions, and losing focus on our Christianity. We must tell ourselves continuously that following the path of God means that with every step we take, the path will become brighter and brighter. We must remember that dedication to this path means that full light of day—the light of God—will shine upon us.

It truly is all too easy to forget the power of a new day, a new beginning. The symbolism of the sun rising in the east every day is indeed powerful, just like the power of God's love and forgiveness. In his 1972 hit song "Turn the Page," Bob Seger wrote, "Here I am, on the road again." He sings about the emotional ups and downs of his life on the road, but the message of this song pairs up very well with scripture. The ups and downs of our daily lives can take a draining and exhausting toll on us all. Sometimes we make mistakes and deviate from the path of Christ. In order to have "clean hands," to become righteous, and to be blessed with the strength from God, we must remember to lead our lives according to Christ and to ask His forgiveness.

I'm no saint, and sometimes I lose control of my temper more than I'd like to admit. The day that I kicked the whole team out of practice and threw the whistle against the wall all those years ago, I was angry. I knew that the next day needed to be a new beginning, the next page in the book. It's tough to turn the page sometimes, but how else can we respond to these moments in a way that is constructive and positive for our teams?

Moment of Kaizen:

• Think about your moments of weakness when you may have let your negative emotions take over. How did you address these moments with your team? What did you do to "turn the page" and move on?
• What positive message do you intend to send when you lose your temper with your team? Can you think of a more powerful means of conveying that message?
• How does your personal attitude or mood influence the tone of practice and/or games? If it is a negative influence, what can you do to correct this?

Related Passage: "The way of the righteous is like the first gleam of dawn, which shines ever brighter until the full light of day." (Proverbs 4:18)

While we are human beings and born sinners, God loves us and forgives us. As coaches, we can serve as a guide for our athletes as they learn to follow His path. We must be able to forgive ourselves for our mistakes and we must be willing to humble ourselves before our teams so we can prove to them that we love them.

September 12, 2021

This article is a part of a series of Coaches Devotionals that I will be writing over the course of the next year. Please click here if you would like to receive email notifications when a new devotional is published.