Devotional
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January 11, 2009
Set:
As this young leader was about to lose his daughter, Jesus gave him three steps to overcome fear—a process that applies to us as well. (1) “Don’t be afraid.” This phrase is mentioned 365 times in Scripture. (2) “Only believe.” Believe that Jesus is more than capable of handling any situation. (3) “She will be made well.” When we obey His teaching not to be afraid and believe He is capable of handling any circumstance, we will come out just fine.
Whether you are facing a larger opponent, an opponent with a better record, or an opponent from a larger school, follow these steps and God will help you with your fear. Remember, God doesn’t care about the scoreboard as much as He cares about the attitude of your heart.
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January 05, 2009
Set:
I’ve been out of college for two years now. I haven’t changed much (at least I’d like to think), but there is one aspect of my life that I’ve let slip: my physical workouts. I did all right in the summer and fall, but once the winter months came, I wanted to stay inside where it was warm. After a long day at work I didn’t want to exert any more energy than I already had. Unfortunately, this way of thinking became a habit, and I could feel my body losing all the muscle and stamina I had worked so hard to gain. Still, I made excuses. “I’ve done my time,” I reasoned. I gave my body everything I had for eight years straight, pushing it through multiple sports in high school and college.
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January 01, 2009
Set:
When a lanky quarterback turned defensive back from the University of Minnesota named Tony Dungy arrived in Pittsburgh for the Steelers training camp, no one would have blamed him for being a little overwhelmed. After all, that team featured 10 future Pro Football Hall of Fame inductees: Terry Bradshaw, Franco Harris, Lynn Swann, John Stallworth, Mike Webster, “Mean” Joe Greene, Jack Lambert, Jack Ham, Mel Blount and Head Coach Chuck Noll provided the nucleus of a team that would claim four Super Bowl titles.
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January 01, 2009
Set:
Shaun Alexander has always been a winner. If you ask him the secret of his success, he will probably list more than just one—including the vital component of exemplary teamwork.
Teamwork has been a part of Alexander’s competitive life as long as he’s been donning pads and strapping on a helmet. It fueled his success at Boone County High School in Florence, Kentucky, and vetted his Southeastern Conference (SEC) championship run at Alabama in 1999. The same holds true for the Seattle Seahawks’ 2005 National Football Conference title that led to a berth in Super Bowl XL.
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January 01, 2009
Set:
Cat Whitehill knows a little something about dynasties. She played for the University of North Carolina soccer program, which through 2007 has accumulated 18 of 26 NCAA titles—including championships in 2000 and 2003 (Whitehill’s freshman and senior seasons at Chapel Hill).
Since 2000, Whitehill has been a mainstay on the historically dominant U.S. National Team, which over the last 17 years has claimed two World Cup titles, 3 Olympic gold medals (Whitehill played on the 2004 team, but an injury kept her from contributing to the 2008 team), 3 Confederation of North, Central American and Caribbean Association Football (CONCACAF) Championship titles and 3 CONCACAF Gold Cup championships.
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January 01, 2009
Set:
Trust is a funny thing. It takes years to build but can be destroyed in an instant. Trust requires honesty, communication, loyalty and proven moral integrity. It is one of the foundational elements behind every great team.
Andy Pettitte knows all about the fragile nature of trust. He has spent his entire life building up trustworthy relationships with his family, his friends, his teammates, the baseball community and the public at large. Yet a single seemingly insignificant misstep can open the door for doubt, which often then results in a certain measure of distrust. In today’s society, it doesn’t take much for a cynical public (and an even more cynical media) to question one’s integrity and chip away at that bedrock of trust.
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January 01, 2009
Set:
If you’ve never heard of Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, don’t feel too badly. Even National Basketball Association (NBA) point guard Luke Ridnour, the town’s most famous product, wouldn’t expect many people to know much (if anything) about his birthplace.
Even though its population is anything but tiny (as of the 2006 census, there were a little over 41,000 inhabitants), only those living in the northwestern United States tend to know much about the city that sits along the edge of the scenic Coeur d’Alene National Forest. And it was in Coeur d’Alene that Ridnour first fell in love with the game of basketball. He lived there until he was seven years old and recalls attending a Christian school where his mother was a teacher.
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January 01, 2009
Set:
It’s usually a good rule of thumb to stay away from stereotypes and cultural clichés in order to avoid potentially embarrassing confrontations with the obligatory “exception to the rule.” But in Curtis Brown’s case, even he admits that a predictable portion of life in Saskatchewan—his native Canadian province—can be described in two words: farming and hockey.
Born in the small rural town of Unity, Brown grew up on a farm where he instinctively fell in line with the majority of his young friends. “What Canadians do is hockey,” Brown says. “I was probably about four when I started skating. I was just like the other kids. If you didn’t play hockey, you were definitely an outsider.”
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January 01, 2009
Set:
Jo Ellen Hornish has a love-hate relationship with auto racing. She’s been a huge fan of racing since her teenage years. It’s the part where her son Sam Hornish Jr. drives in one of those cars at speeds of 180 to 200miles per hour that she’s not crazy about. “She would have much rather I become a pastor,” Hornish Jr. says. “I’m pretty sure of that. There’s never been a time where she’s said, ‘Man, I’m glad he’s a racecar driver.’ But she knows that it makes me happy.”
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January 01, 2009
Set:
When Tamika Catchings was in the third grade, she played on her first basketball team alongside sister Tauja. Her father, Harvey Catchings—an 11-year NBA player—was the coach of the squad that, other than his daughters, consisted of boys. The fact that Catchings and her sister were the only girls on the team is an interesting fact, but it’s not nearly as telling as the principles they learned from their dad’s coaching style. “We had to learn how to play as a group,” Catchings recalls. “My dad always preached about how it was a team effort. We got that drilled in our head.”
