In 2001, golfer Annika Sorenstam dominated the women’s professional tour, winning eight tournaments and topping two million dollars in earnings. After that phenomenal year, Annika’s chief rival, Karrie Webb, commented that she’d eat her hat if Annika won eight tournaments in the coming year. The following season, Annika won eleven tournaments and earned nearly three million dollars in prize money.

Trouble and being troubled are two completely different things. Trouble is being down by a run, nobody on base, with two outs in the bottom of the ninth and our worst hitter coming to the plate. Being troubled is having no strategy for this scenario and not being prepared to accept the possible consequences that are about to come.

As coaches, there will be many times when we will have to declare to our team, “Don’t worry, everything will be okay.” We might even complete our short speech with the same words that Jesus did: “Believe in me.” But if we haven’t demonstrated believability to our players, these words will have absolutely no value. Without having the same credibility that Jesus had, our words will be like wisps of air.

Those of us who watch a lot of sports programs on television have probably seen the St. Louis Cardinals’ “blanket” commercial. It begins with a man who wraps a red St. Louis Cardinals’ blanket around himself. As it turns out, the blanket is the one constant in his life as he grows up. As a child, he uses it as a cape when he runs up the steps, and he drapes it over his bed when he studies. It is on the seat when he learns to play the drums as a teenager, in the trunk when he moves out of the house, and around his girlfriend while they watch a movie. The commercial ends with the man wrapping the blanket around his child as these words come on the screen: “Without sports, what would we hold on to?”

Trouble often seems to be waiting around every corner of daily life, especially for coaches. Whether it is a troubled player, an unfair referee, a nagging parent or an unreasonable principal, coaches can count on difficulties. They come with the territory!

Thankfully, Jesus never pretended that life would be a luxury cruise. “You will have trouble,” He told His disciples. In fact, difficulties are guaranteed, an inevitable part of living in a fallen world. Jesus didn’t deliver the trouble; He just knew it was coming.