I just read an FCA Impact Play devotional thing on my email, and there was a statement by a little 13 year old kid who went to one of their camps that spoke to the heart of probably many people, but it has definitely impacted mine.
"If ya ain't serving, ya ain't leading."
This statement is one of the many things we are told by Jesus Himself in so many different ways. In Matthew Jesus says "For even the Son of Man didn't come to lead but to serve". Of course that's a bit paraphrased, but the point is, Jesus came to yes, lead us from death to life, but He also came to help us become servants of our brothers, so that they too will know the meaning of love from Christ's view. Maybe we can take this even farther?
I'm not exactly sure what your situation is right now, but I know that in my life, football is one of those things that requires a lot of service to the team. You have to GIVE the team your best. You can't tell them that they have to, because in reality, you can't tell them how hard they are going to go in what it is you're doing. The best kind of leader, is one who leads by example. School football, along with sports like Volleyball, and golf take up the last month of Summer. There is quite literally almost nothing else you can do. You're GIVING away your time so you can play these sports, instead of hanging out with friends, like I know all of us would love to do. It takes a lot of service to play fall sports for school, since they go from the end of Summer to sometimes into the early Winter. It's quite a long time.
Even in other sports too. School soccer for my area is in the Spring time. In all reality though, you have to train for things like that from the beginning of Winter almost. It goes from things like running during the Fall and Winter times, to tryouts in late Winter. Then once you're on the team, it goes from then til pretty much the end of school, and maybe after if you're going to states or something like that. You GIVE a lot of your time to do sports. That's one reason why sports represent a lot about what it means to be a follower of Jesus.
Think, in defense when you're playing football, Volleyball, Soccer, or most other things, there is a pattern you're in. Football, you have 11 guys, who each have different jobs, different holes they have to fill in order to make sure that the ball doesn't end up in the end zone. If just one person doesn't do their job right, or they don't do it to the best of their ability, it can mean the difference between a tackle for a 5 yard loss, or a 50 yard run for a touch down. In Volleyball, if one player leaves their position, to try and be a hero, the ball could hit the floor, because of the interferance with two players colliding, or if someone on the other team notices and hits the ball into that hole. Each player has that zone they must be in. In Soccer, the formation you're in has 10 different players (Keeper not included) that are in different places. In a 3-4-3, you have three strikers who can take shots from different angles, 4 midfielders, which can give you good control over that section, since you can use the whole field with less running if you had 2 or 3 midfielders. Then you've got 3 defenders, which are usually fast, and in shape so they can get the ball back up top to try and score. If one player leaves his or her position to try and help out, and no one fills in, or they don't get back, that can leave the keeper in a bad situation where it may be one-on-one with the keeper having bad odds. Zones mean a lot in sports, and if you don't SERVE your team with playing your role to the best of your ability, in can mean a TD, a goal, a point, or whatever type of scoring system your sport uses. It's based on what you GIVE to your team.
Every team has it's own set of leaders. These are the people who have given everything to the team they play for for every year they've been there. 4 years generally for high school. They are the seniors who have sacrificed 4 months or more each and every year to get better, and make sure they can be the best they can be. The people who go through the two-a-day practices, each year in order to get that W on Friday night. The people who train to run faster, jump higher, and get better each and every day they practice. The ones whose blood, sweat and tears cover the playing field. In victory or defeat, when they've lost the big game, or they've won their first state championship. They've given their lives for that time period away in order to say "I've earned something"
The same goes with Jesus, my friends. The only thing is, you don't have to give up blood, sweat or tears. You don't have to give up your time to hang out with friends. You just give Him your life, and trust that His plan will get you through. When you serve in the name of Jesus, that will lead people into wanting what you have in Him. That's how it happened for me. My friends Zack, Adam, Quentin, Eric, Jack. They served me in the most simple ways. Giving me rides to Young Life, buying me food when I didn't have many, though that's a good majority of the time, pushing me to get more out of things. All of that affected my decision in giving my life to Jesus. Their service lead me into relationship with Christ. They lead by example, because Jesus lead them by example. We love because Christ first loved us. Christ taught us how to love someone, and we love them in the way that Jesus taught us, and that brings people to see Jesus. When Jesus taught us the Lord's prayer, He prayed it with His disciples. He led them by example, in which He was serving them too. He taught them many things. He did those things first.
I can't think of the word, but I tend to be a person who learns better when I see it done first. If I am the first one to do it, chances are, I will mess it up. When it comes to a drill, I'm either second, or close to last in lines, because I want to see it before I do something. If I don't know how to do something before we go to do it, I expect that there is someone to teach me how to do it correctly. That's how it is with our relationship with Jesus, when we spend time with Christ, we learn how to do things, by the example that He has given us. We then can better put it into action. I think this 13 year old named Larry who said the above statement, realized this, and wanted everyone to see what he had learned from Jesus.
Thanks for the inspiration, Larry.
Thanks for reading if you did.
I love you guys,
TJ
"If ya ain't serving, ya ain't leading."
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