Coaching Matters

Spiritual Training Cycle: Submission (wk. 2/13)

Reading: Romans 8:5-13

Who’s your coach? Because coaching matters.

My first attempt at CrossFit was a bust. The workout was push press; The coach was inexperienced; And by the end, I was injured. It took me almost a year before I stepped back into a gym. Fortunately, I found a more experienced, less ego-driven coach who took my safety seriously. And 10 years later, I’m stronger, fitter, and healthier because of her. Coaching matters. Ted Lasso taught us that. And chances are as you look back over your life, you can point to one or two coaches (in sports or in life) who helped shaped who you are today.

GOOD COACHES DO A FEW GREAT THINGS

Coaches help you see what you can’t. A good coach finds the little things that make a big difference. Weight transfer, timing, body positions, core engagement, and proper rest all have massive impacts on performance. Great coaches help you see the little things that can have a big impact on your performance.

Coaches set priorities. Coaches play a pivotal role in guiding us toward what matters in the present moment. Whether your goal is winning, lifting more, running faster, or achieving weight loss, coaches help identify the crucial priorities lying between you and your aspirations.

Coaches encourage you. We need cheerleaders in our lives who think everything we do is awesome. Coaches are different. They help us face the hard realities of our situation and walk through it with us. Where there is fear, they give us courage.

“The mind governed by the flesh is death, but the mind governed by the Spirit is life and peace.” Romans 8:6

YOUR SPIRITUAL LIFE NEEDS A COACH

It’s best to think about your spiritual life as your inner life – your thoughts, emotions, and experiences. Paul calls this the “mind or mindset,” and it can either be governed (or coached) by the flesh or the Spirit of God. The flesh is the Bible’s way of talking about our natural selfishness. As adults, we learn to hide our selfishness, envy, grudges, and pettiness. But when the flesh takes over, trouble soon follows. Relationships suffer, bad habits corrupt good intentions, fear replaces joy, and pandemonium ensues.

Just like you need coaches for your body, you need a coach for your soul. God gives us His Spirit as a coach for our inner lives. When the Holy Spirit becomes your coach, here’s what to expect:

The Spirit of God helps us see what we can’t see ourselves. The way our actions and attitudes hinder us and hurt others. Opportunities to bless others and be blessed, and how God’s love is unfolding in our hearts.

The Spirit of God sets our priorities. As you listen to the Spirit’s coaching, you’ll find things that once mattered a lot to you fade into the background (people’s opinions, having the coolest technology or fashion, even things like grudges).

The Spirit of God pours courage into our hearts. Whether it’s saying no to a bad habit, ending an unhealthy relationship, or sharing your faith in God, it takes courage to follow Jesus. When we rely on the Spirit and are honest about our fears, God places His power, resolve, and confidence into our hearts to follow Him.

“Those who live according to the flesh have their minds set on what the flesh desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires.” Romans 8:5

SWITCHING COACHES

In the movie Creed, when young Adonis Creed wants to train with Rocky, he leaves behind his comfortable life in Beverly Hills to join his new coach in the slums of Philadelphia. To train with Rocky, he had to live like Rocky. The same is true for us. If we’re going to allow the Spirit to coach us, we need to live alongside the Spirit. Here are three ways to start:

Be with the Spirit. The Spirit of God is everywhere, but there are places where it is easier to find Him. This is why spiritual communities are so important. Find a church, HOPE Group, or set of friends that encourage you to connect with the Spirit.

Choose the things of the Spirit. Whether it’s sleep, food, or friends you train with, every decision is part of the process. The same is true for following the Spirit. Every decision is either from your coach, the Spirit, or your former coach, the flesh.

Rely on the Spirit. In every great coaching story, there is a moment when the athlete questions the coach. You’ll have the same moments in your walk with God – places and points where following God doesn’t make sense. That’s the time to dig deep and trust that God has a plan.

Who’s your coach? Because coaching matters.

Questions for Reflection:

Can you tell the difference between the coaching of the flesh and the coaching of the Spirit?

When have you had to rely on the Spirit of God? How did it turn out?

Do you have a community that helps you find and follow the Spirit?

Evidence

Spiritual Training Cycle: Submission (wk. 1/13)

Reading: Galatians 5:13-26

Crime dramas. Not the way I normally open a devotional, but now that I have your attention. My wife loves crime dramas. I’m not sure where it started, but it may go all the way back to Hill Street Blues or In the Heat of the Night. And I love my wife, so I tolerate crime dramas – emphasis on the crime and not the drama. There is one aspect of the genre that I find fascinating, and why I was a closet CSI: Miami watcher for a few years. I love the search for clues. I love the evidence.

Evidence is the outward sign or proof of something. Scripture says that faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things unseen. And that’s the challenge in our spiritual lives sometimes – we want to see the evidence.

When it comes to our bodies, the evidence of fitness is all around. It’s found in our performance. It’s found in our perspective. And it’s found in our physique. But fitness itself isn’t visible. Much like the wind, we can’t see fitness, but we can see its effects through the evidence.

So, why do I say all that? Because I’m about to discuss an aspect of our lives that, like fitness, we can’t really see. Scripture calls it, “the flesh,” which right out of the gate is super confusing. Because the one part of our body it seems everyone can see is our flesh.

Our physical skin in not what the Apostle Paul is referring to in his letter to the Galatians. Instead, he’s talking about our epicenter of pride and self-willing. He’s talking about the arena of indulgence and self-assertion. That’s how German theologian Rudolf Bultmann defines the Biblical concept of the flesh. And I think he’s spot on!

Paul knows that his audience can’t see this flesh. So he introduces some evidence. You can read through the list in Galatians 5:19-21, or I can summarize it in one sentence: Without any help at all, we inherently do things we know we shouldn’t do.

Like binging. Who here hasn’t been on a good binge? That could be mowing down a sheet pan of brownies or getting lost in social media for an hour or more. Some of you have sacrificed quality sleep to binge the last episodes of a series. Others of you have suffered the symptoms of binging alcohol, dealing with a hangover the next day. You knew it wasn’t going to be good for you. But you did it anyway. You entered Bultmann’s arena of indulgence and self-assertion, and there you abandoned all self-control as you took your God given freedom and played it fast and loose. From pride to anger to envy to ambition, the evidence of the Biblical concept of the flesh is all over our lives.

Which would be a pretty lousy way to navigate life, if there was a better option. And there is. The same freedom you use to binge can also be used to battle. That’s right. You can resist your natural inclinations to be selfish and to self-indulge. And the even better news is that God gives us His Spirit to teach us how to battle those internal desires. The result is a new set of desires which are found in the evidence.

Paul calls the Galatians to walk by the Spirit, so they won’t gratify the desires of the flesh. Walking by the Spirit produces the evidence of God in our lives. Paul calls this the fruit of the Spirit. I call it our spiritual physique.

Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

This is the evidence of who you are when you are made new in Jesus. And while some might argue people don’t have to follow Jesus to be kind and loving, I would say that God’s kindness and love are universal. They transcend the movement of faith known as Christianity, and they reach across the world with the goal of touching everyone.

But when it comes to a spiritual physique, there is so much more. This is the daily journey of spiritual transformation. The evidence of a deep and meaningful relationship with God is not an occasional heart emoji or kind word. It is someone who is being reshaped, reformed, and refined into a more distinct image of Jesus. These nine spiritual skills, or fruits of the Spirit, become the fabric upon which your most fulfilling life will be woven.

You don’t have to work hard to do nothing. You can stay home, sit on the couch, order Door Dash, and absolutely waste your life away. But that’s not who you are and that’s not what you want. You want to win the battle! Like when you win the battle with the snooze button. When you hold the last word rather than getting it in. When you comfort someone instead of being selfish. The battle you’re winning is against yourself. God is shaping your spiritual physique. And one day, maybe when you least expect it, you’ll see the evidence.

Questions for Reflection:

What’s the battle with your flesh look like?

What do you struggle to resist?

How does that struggle impact your life?

Stay in the Flow

Spiritual Training Cycle: Examination (wk. 13/13)

Reading: Proverbs 25:26-28

Every so often, I am the fastest person in the gym… at least for the first 30 seconds or so. When that happens, I spend the rest of the workout struggling to breathe and getting very little exercise done. We call this red lining out of the gate. It is what happens when our ego takes over. And it hurts and ruins our performance. There is another option, though. We call it flow.

Flow is when effort meets demand. If the demand of a workout is too high, we’ll exhaust ourselves too soon. If the effort is higher than the demand, we’ll underperform and feel dissatisfied. You wouldn’t run a 40-yard dash at the same pace you’d run 3 miles. Flow is matching the pace (effort) to the workout (demand). Flow is the optimal way to do a workout. It is flexible, sustainable, and effective. It’s a good place to be. But a hard one to stay in.

Flow is difficult because it requires self-control. Self-control is tricky, because you’re in control. The question is, which version of you? Is it the ‘motivated, ready to win you’ or is it the ‘I need donuts you’? Staying in the flow requires that things like our egos, appetites, pride, and angst all take a back seat. Sometimes it requires going slow when everyone else is speeding up. Other times it means eating healthy or skipping a night out.

Flow is a good place to be outside of the gym, also. Flow in our relationships makes them more fruitful, flow at work feels productive and meaningful, and flow at home is that balance of neat and lived-in.

When we talk about flow spiritually, we are talking about being in sync with the Spirit of God. In the flow, you are immersed in the love, presence, and desire of God. And you are experiencing the fruits of the connection, things like love, joy, and peace. It is the life we all desire because it is the life we were made for. It is a life of thriving wholeness. This is what the Hebrews call shalom. And self-control is where we find it.

Take a look at Proverbs 25:26-28. Proverbs is a book full of wisdom wrapped in riddles. It’s sticky wisdom. In these verses, Solomon gives us three pictures of ruined shalom - a muddy spring, too many sweets, and a city with no protection. What ruined them? A lack of self-control. It takes self-control to keep trash from polluting your water source. It takes self-control to keep from getting a stomachache or diabetes from too much sugar. You must stay committed to maintaining the wall around your city.

For a lot of us, including me, I think of self-control as the things I’m saying “no” to. In reality, self-control is all about what you’re saying “yes” to. I say “no” to French fries because I’m saying ‘yes’ to one day getting a muscle up or running a personal best in the mile. In the same way, there are areas of my life, far more important than fitness goals, that I really want to see thrive. So, I’m practicing self-control in:

Real Relationships: We live in a fractured world, and relationships are often what gets broken. Things like porn and social media give us this picture that relationships can be effortless and on my terms. When I say “no” to porn, I’m saying yes to real relationships – that are far more complicated but infinitely more fulfilling. Self-control leads me to deeper, more satisfying relationships.

My Own Significance: I learned early on that putting others down is an easy way to make myself feel built up. Not an effective way and certainly not a healthy way, but a way. This lesson has followed me into relationships, work, family, and of course the gym. But talking trashing, spilling the tea, or judging others will never give me the significance I’m looking for. Only God can do that. Putting others down only pushes me farther away from God’s voice telling me that ‘I’m enough.’ Self-control keeps me close to the words of the Father.

Finding Peace: There is this poisonous belief that the only way to get peace is to get even. This is why so many of us walk around with grudges. We believe that instead of forgiveness, grudges offer us the most peace and protection. God doesn’t see it that way. He knows that releasing (forgiveness means releasing) those hurts and wrongs will give us true peace – real shalom. Forgiveness doesn’t mean returning to unsafe situations and people. It means letting go, so that you can move on to what God has for you. Self-control keeps me looking forward at what God is giving me, instead of looking backward at what people have taken from me.

Self-control keeps us in the flow, both in the gym and spiritually. We’re saying “no” to our egos and appetites so that we can say “yes” to real peace and true shalom. Self-control is a better journey to a better destination.

Questions for Reflection:

Where in your life are you experiencing increasing shalom? How has self-control aided in that?

Loneliness, anger, and fatigue are major spoilers of our self-control. Which are you most susceptible to?

How have you noticed God’s grace in your practice of self-control?