I sat with a coach whom I had known for years, discussing how to help someone in the midst of crisis. He desperately wanted to help, but, almost in tears, he revealed he could not because of his own finances. He was enslaved to debt. I wish I could say his story is the exception to the rule, but sadly it is not today. We live in an age of credit. An entire industry is built on encouraging us to incur large amounts of debt. Many companies earn more from interest than from the products they sell. Debt service takes a huge part of people’s income. Proverbs 22:7 clearly warns us about debt: “The rich rules over the poor, and the borrower is a slave to the lender.” Debt causes us to shift our allegiance to those we owe and away from God.

Every day as coaches, we face many decisions that will affect our team. We need to deal with everything from what to do at practice, to who should be the starters in the next game. Some decisions are bigger than others, but they all have some bearing on our team. Every once in a while we may find ourselves in a position where we have no clue what decision to make or how to resolve an issue. It is at those times that we turn to assistant coaches, athletic directors, and others for help.

This past December I attended a high school basketball game—not an unusual event for the month. But what was unique about this game wasn’t what took place on the court, but what I witnessed on the bench. One of the players who had started in the previous game wasn’t starting this night. As a matter of fact, he only played about a minute in each half. The player was obviously disappointed when he came out of the game after only being in for a minute. He even politely asked the coach, “What did I do?” I could read the coach’s lips as he replied, “You didn’t do anything wrong.” Disappointed, the player took his spot on the bench.