Season Training

Believe it or not, football season is around the corner. Yes, it's 90 plus degrees outside, and we're already thinking about the biggest sport of the fall season. I heard a teenage boy commenting to his friend not long ago that "three-a-days" would be starting soon. In case you don't know what that is; when high school football programs begin gearing up for the fall season, they institute a practice regimen that begins in late summer, consisting of three practices a day. They meet in the morning, early afternoon, and evening, for two to three hours at a time. This process will last two to three weeks, and then switch to two times a day, and then eventually every afternoon after school. Additionally, several programs encourage their players to go to week long summer camps that happen earlier in the summer. All of these months of practice, and drills, and exercising, and weight lifting, and endurance training takes place in anticipation of only ten, one hour games, over the course of a three month period. That's several hundred hours of practice, for ten hours of competition.

I was relaxing on the beach this summer when I saw someone dressed in sweat clothes approaching from a distance. As the figure got closer, I realized it was probably an athlete, maybe a boxer, in training. The guy was dressed in heavy sweats, jogging in the sand, with weights around his wrists and ankles. I watched as he passed, and disappeared into the distance, never missing a step. Clearly, this was not his first trip. In fact, he appeared again the next day as well. If you've ever tried to walk any distance in the loose sand, you can imagine how tough it must be to jog, especially with weighted ankles. All of this, I'm sure, as a way of training for an event, or series of competitions.

If you take a random group of teen boys and pit them as a team against those who have been training for weeks and weeks, it will be a very short contest. Put an untrained man in the ring with that guy who jogged past me on the beach, and you can imagine what he'd look like in under three minutes. Now, contrast that to your life when you come up against the trials and challenges we face each day. How many folks that you know look like a battered, untrained boxer at the end of their day? Maybe that's you?

Scripture is full of advice pertaining to this subject. Paul writes to the church in Corinth, "Everyone who competes in the game goes into strict training."

(I Corinthians 9:25) In verse 26 he continues, "I do not run like a man running aimlessly; I do not fight like a man beating the air." Because he's been in Spiritual training. Too many of us live like we're on the team, but we're real content to just sit on the bench. We want to wear the jersey, but we really don't want to go into the game. In a typical sports game, it is possible to claim a spot on the team without ever having contact with an opposing team member. Teams are full of bench warmers. But in the game of life, there aren't any benches. There's not a "B squad." We're all in the game, in spite of our wishing we wouldn't have to be.

Whose team are you on? If you call yourself a Christian, you're declaring that you're on God's team, therefore, declaring to the "other side," that you've identified them as the opposing team. That makes you a target. Sitting on the bench won't keep you out of the game. It just makes you a sitting target. There are no neutral spots, or safe zones. You're on one team or the other, and you are in the game. And if you're on God's side, wouldn't it make sense to get as much training as possible? If a 350 pound line backer came charging at you, wouldn't you want to know how to defend yourself? That guy is a cream puff compared to the assaults Satan launches at you all day, every day.

What do you do about it? Just like an athlete has to train, daily, in anticipation of the looming competition, we must train daily for the guaranteed confrontations we will face. We train by seeking the face of God in all that we do. We study His word, we pray, we gather and fellowship with like minded brothers and sisters, we feed our minds and souls with the things of Christ, and strive to grow in Godly wisdom and knowledge. The Bible is full of words like Stand, Guard, and Resist. We really can go shoulder to shoulder with our enemy, and win, every time, if we've invested time and energy into training - into growing our abilities through our relationship with Christ. James 4:7 says, "Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Come near to God, and He will come near to you." I invite you to pick up your sword (Bible) and begin training your mind and heart. If "three-a-days" seem overwhelming, think about the last time your life hit a brick wall. All the sudden, a few minutes, three times a day doesn't seem like that much after all. Imagine that same line backer charging at you, pulling up short and walking away before ever making contact, because he knows he's no match for you. Imagine that kind of victory every day. You can be that prepared.