Drills

When I coached soccer I was always trying drills that I came up with in my head. I had an idea of what I wanted to strengthen in a player or the team and would develop a drill that I thought would appropriately address that weakness. The majority of those drills bombed. It was very apparent that they weren't going to work after just a few minutes. They were de-motivating and neither the players or I could see any hope for success. A few required significant tweaking and kind of worked. And a an even smaller number worked spectacularly. Even if they were hard players liked them because they could see how they were helping them be the players they wanted to become.

All drills fall into broad categories; passing, shooting, defending, transition, switching the point of attack, etc. But simply telling my team to go do a passing drill wasn't enough. They needed specific drills so if I did tell them to go do a passing drill, without any specifics, it was up to them to come up with something that would work. Most of my players had come from teams with decent coaching so they would come up with something most of the time. But what would happen if they hadn't had that kind of background?

I think this happens a lot with spiritual disciplines. We tell people they should practice spiritual disciplines but we just give broad categories. If we do go beyond that, the "drills" we give them are often inappropriate for their "skill level" or just bad drills to begin with. They don't motivate and they offer little hope for growth.

It turns out something like this. "Go develop a prayer life (broad category) by finding a quiet place where you can spend 20 minutes each day in prayer (probably a lousy drill)." The person is frustrated because it is is hard to find 20 minutes of quiet time because the kids are always wanting something and the actual praying part felt very much like a one sided conversation that was going nowhere. Day two lasted only 12 minutes and the actual prayer seemed an awful lot like day one's.

It's no wonder that thousands of people commit to reading the Bible, praying, practicing solitude, fasting, etc. only to fall off the wagon after a few days or a few weeks. Spiritual mentors need to learn to develop "drills" that inspire, motivate, and give hope for growth. It's not about making it easy, it's about giving the proper motivation.

It also seems that this needs to be customized. When coaching, I got a lot of ideas from coaching books, magazines, chat rooms, and other coaches themselves. But most drills had to be customized for the players I was working with. I had to simplify some drills and make others more difficult.

The problem for spiritual mentors is that such customization takes time and attention. But looking at the current state of North American Christianity I don't think we have a choice. It is time to let the creative juices start flowing.

Rest

In his book "The Good And Beautiful God," James Bryan Smith uses an excerpt from Dr. Siang-Yang Tan's book, "Rest," where he quotes Arch Hart. (How is that for a source trail.:)) I'm too lazy to write out the quote but the key stats where that in 1850 the average American averaged 9.5 hours a sleep/night. By 1950 it was 8 hours of sleep/night. And today it is less than 7 hours of sleep. Smith also states that researchers say we need an average of 8 hours of sleep to maintain health.

The 8 hours of sleep is an average so that means that some people can get by with less but some people NEED more than 8 hours. I suppose this means that most people feel they are part of the average that needs less than 8 hours and apparently all those who sleep longer didn't wake up in time for the survey.

The real problem with sleep is the public opinion of it. If I see someone who is disciplined enough to eat a healthy diet I admire that person. The guy who can turn down a huge bowl of ice cream, or at least severely restrict the serving size, is to be commended. I am amazed when I see a guy with a whopping large salad, a hefty helping of green beans, just the "deck of playing cards" sized steak, and a miniscule helping of cheesy potatoes.

Of course we may hold in our enthusiasm when it comes to pasty pale vegan extremists, but for the most part we applaud those who eat their fruit and vegetables and show restraint with the breads. Eating healthy, if you can manage it, is a great way to win the admiration of those around you.

Not so with a healthy amount of sleep. It starts out with teenagers who we rant and rave about when they don't get up before noon. We make sure they know they are worthless slugs for being so slothful. By the time a person is an adult anything more than 7 hours of sleep is thought to be lazy.

I spent a lot of years in a developing country, living in a town that didn't have electricity. It was close to the equator so the length of the days only varied by about 45 minutes throughout the year. Every day, sometime around 7 AM, it would get light, and sometime around 7 PM, it would get dark. Not having electricity really puts a damper on a lot of things that keep us up at night. Locals would stay up talking around a fire or visit by candles or oil lamp. But everyone was very aware that night had arrived and by 10 PM everything was pretty much shut down until 7 AM when it would get light again.

We had solar panels which gave us a little more light but with no TV we were stuck with visiting or reading books. I like to read but after 3 hours of reading I was about ready for bed at 10 PM too. All this to say that this probably represents a cycle that is much closer to what we were created for if we are going to be healthy.

I could go on and talk about all the different reasons why we stay up late and get up early or are labeled as lazy. But my conclusion is that I am going to start celebrating sleep. I won't lecture my kids about sleeping too much. I'll congratulate anyone who tells me they got 10 hours of sleep last night. And I'll give a look of suspicion to anyone who tells me they only need 7 hours or less of sleep. I need to work on my suspicious look.

Understanding

"Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him and he will make your paths straight." Proverbs 3:5,6

That is an often quoted and well known scripture to many Christians but it occurred to me recently how difficult it is. It is of great importance when dealing with theology because I think it is easy to only believe what we can understand.

In the past decade there has been a lot discussion about theological issues like the fate of people who have never heard about Jesus, God's ability to know the future, and, most recently, is hell a real place. I'm not choosing sides for any of these in this post. I'm just saying that there has been a lot written and discussed on these issues.

What I have noticed is that in each of these issues I have heard that an alternative explanation was needed because the logical outcome of the orthodox version was incomprehensible. I understand the frustration with that and I think it is good that people discuss these issues. I think we should push hard for understanding. I just don't know when the "incomprehensible argument" became the litmus test for truth.

Didn't God yell at Job and his friends about that?

Expression

Expressing emotion or feelings, at least the very deep ones, is not easy for me at all. It creates all sorts of issues with my wife but somehow we manage. But there is a relationship I have that I feel deeply about that haunts me because of how difficult it is for me to express it. And yes, it needs expressing.

I am head-over-heels in love with Jesus. I know that is easy to say but I'm serious. It is hard for me to think of a decision I make where he isn't a factor in some way. It is what I live for. And yet I don't think very many people would guess that about me.

Now I know there is a difference in that I do believe HE knows how much I love him whereas I need to express that to my wife. But I think that in this case it is important that everyone else knows it too. But I don't think they do. I'm not even sure if my kids know it to that degree.

If you asked most people who know me, "Does Tom loves Jesus?," most would say yes. I hope. But they would say that about anybody that they know who claims to be a Christian. But somehow that doesn't capture the depth of what I feel for Jesus. It is so much more than just a statement and it bothers me, to the point that it keeps me up at night, that I don't feel I express that very well.

I know it is supposed to be irresistible, contagious even, they say. But is that really true for all people? Or is personality type just an excuse? Am I failing to truly make my love for Jesus inherent in everything I do? All I know is I'm tired.

Change

This is something that has been around forever but for some odd reason I have bumped up against it a lot recently. It has to do with changing or, rather, not changing. It seems like I've suddenly run into several impassioned pleas to, "Don't change who you are," or, the defiant, "Don't try to change me. This is just who I am."

Well, yes and no. Every time these statements are made they must be taken in context. Some people shouldn't change some of the things about them because they are pretty wonderful. And some people need to resist the efforts of others to change them into someone they shouldn't become. The problem is that pretty soon the "don't change" mantra gets set in stone and people end up against change.

Well, the fact is most of us should change, or at least change parts of who we are. I've have personally been working on a lot of things about me that I would like to change and I'm sure I'll discover even more things to change in the future. And that list includes some things that you could say I was born with. I was born with a pointy head too but I sure didn't want to keep it.