Keep Your Head Up: Soccer Lessons

"Keep your head up."

   Soccer is very trying at times. You are tested physically, mentally, socially, and emotionally. It is especially difficult when you keep losing and messing up. That's when it is important to be mentally and emotionally stable. As previously mentioned, soccer is a team sport. If one person is having problems staying strong mentally and emotionally the rest of the team will probably suffer.

   I remember coaching a team that was losing very badly at the beginning of the season. I kept telling them many different things and teaching them things to help them improve. But, I told them "one thing I will not stand for is seeing your heads go down. Body language is a very important thing. As soon at someone puts her head down it's like we have given up. You are saying to your team that you have lost hope in them."

   That team never put their heads down during a game. They kept working hard for each other. They kept hope that they would improve and could still win. By the end of the season we were winning games because we kept our heads up.

   In life we will also have trying times. Romans 8:23-24 says:

"Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption to son ship, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what they already have? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently."

   We have the greatest and only hope for this lost world: Jesus. We cannot see Jesus now, but we see his work. We know that we are children of God. We will receive his inheritance, which is eternal life with him. All of the trials and problems we go through in life on earth are temporary. If we make a mistake, Jesus washes us clean (that doesn't mean we should continue to sin James.4.7). That's where our hope comes from.

   That's why we don't need to hang our heads. Because, we have a father who sent his son to die for us. When we look down on ourselves we are looking down on what he created. We are looking down on his child. God loves us and finds us worthy through Jesus' work on the cross. We can keep our heads up because of that hope, no matter what trials we go through.

   So, do you have hope in Jesus? Do you beat yourself up too much? What can you do when you go through trials to remember that they are temporary; and that you have a hope in Jesus?
   Image from here.