I must admit that one of my guilty pleasures is to watch MMa (mixed martial arts) fights, particularly fights in the UFC.  Mixed Martial Arts is a hodge podge of wrestling, boxing, taekwondo, jui jitsu, and other fighting styles thrown into an 8-sided cage.  Fighters battle for 15 minutes (25 minutes for championship bouts) until someone is knocked out, the referee stops the action, or a fighter “taps out”.  The act of “tapping out” tells your opponent, the referee, and the millions watching on pay-per-view that you gave up because you are feeling immense pain brought on by your opponent.

Have you ever wondered why we are so competitive as athletes and coaches? Why when we get onto the playing field we take on a whole new persona? The competitive nature to win comes out in us all. We sacrifice for the team! We lay down that bunt or make the block so that the rest of the team can rejoice in the victory.

Our flesh is competitive, but so is our Spirit. In Galatians 5, Paul talks about this very thing. Our flesh and our Spirit are at war with each other. The things of God are always and will always be completely different from the things of the flesh.

Integrity isn’t just something you display when you’re out in public or on the job. It also carries over to your family, to your kids, to your neighbors, to everybody who comes into contact with you. Am I saying things to my family like, “This is what I want you to do,” but I don’t necessarily do them? Am I saying, “This is what we’re going to be all about as a family,” but maybe next week it won’t be? I think that’s very confusing and it’s important to let my family know here are our standards, the Lord’s standards. This is what we’re going to try to live up to. Sure we’re going to fail at times and we’re going to fall short, but this is what we need to be about.

Hockey Chat:  With the NHL expansion in the late 1960s and the emergence of skilled players like Wayne Gretzky, enforcers became more common.  Their role was to try to knock those skilled guys on the other team off of their game.  The enforcers were poor at nearly everything else because their main role was to hunt down the good guy and get ‘em and they spent their ice time doing just that.

After finishing up my college baseball career, I’m now in my first year in the business world. That means that this upcoming spring will be the first time I won’t be suiting up to hit the diamond (sad day).

Looking back on my four years of college ball, one of the biggest lessons I learned was about leadership. I always thought that leaders had to be guys who were loud, well-liked, in control and who could make people do certain things. While leaders do need to be able to take control, through baseball, I learned that the best way to lead is not to be forceful, but to serve and go out of your way to do things completely unexpected of you.

Do you ever wake up and feel like God has a word for you that day? Well, today was one of those days for me. God revealed it to me in my quiet time. And, if that wasn’t enough, the devotion that my son and I read together was about the same passage and same thing. OK, OK. I get the message loud and clear.

The message was from Matthew 14. I was struck by the passage in which the disciples, obviously tired of the crowds of people that constantly surrounded them, told Jesus to send the people home and that they (the disciples) would go find food for themselves and Jesus. But Jesus had another answer for them that moment.

I was coaching a junior high boy’s basketball team and having a great time. During one game, however, the team was not executing well. I called a time-out and gave the boys a lecture while they sat on the bench. I paused to see if my message was getting through. And that’s when the starting center, a team leader, broke the silence with a goofy imitation of me. He mimicked several of my phrases and the other players were a little nervous about what my reaction would be. I decided to laugh, so the whole team laughed along with me. These were boys who loved to have fun. Scripture says that there is a time for everything (Ec 3:1). There is certainly a time for discipline and teaching, but there are countless opportunities for fun and laughter too.

I don’t know about your neighborhood, but when I was younger we had the “do over.” Remember? You took a swing and your foot went out from under you. You mis-kicked the ball in a kickball game because you slipped on some wet grass. What were the first words to come out of your mouth? “Do over!!”

Did you know that God gave us a “do over”? Paul wrote the church in Corinth that when they accepted Christ they became a new creation. Well, thousands of years later, the same is still true for us. When we accept Christ as Savior and Lord, we become a new creation.