Your Last is Your Best: Soccer Lessons

"Your last one is your best one."

   Soccer is a very grueling sport. Some people who don't know soccer or have never seen it played just assume that soccer is just passing the ball up the field to score. Yes, the goal of the game is to score in the goal but there is so much more strategy to it. What formation are you going to play? Where are you going to play certain players? Should you contain or step hard to the ball? Should you pass or shoot? There's more but I'll stop there.

   One area that I have noticed that is very difficult about the game of soccer is the endurance it takes to stay in the game. I'm not talking just running endurance. I'm talking body endurance too. For those of you who don't know, soccer is a contact sport. Players need to take hits, some harder than others, and still play the game. The only protection players wear are shin guards. Thus, they get the wind knocked out of them a lot.

   All of these things are the reason I began to say: "your last one is your best one." This may seem strange. You may be thinking, "wouldn't you want your first to be your best?" Yes, you still want your first to be good but that's when you aren't so tired. I've coached teams and been on teams that were doing well at the beginning because they were not tired. Then they got tired and lost. If you don't do your best through the whole game it doesn't matter how you do at the beginning of the game. No one remembers about how you did at the beginning. It matters how you do at the end. The result tells a story.

   It's like this: when you first start a job you want to prove yourself so you work really hard. Then as you are there longer you may get tired of the trivial everyday tasks you do. If you start to slack off on your duties what's going to happen? Do you think people are going to remember you for what you did when you first started working there or how you worked when you were there your last days?

   Colossians 3:23 says: "Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men." If we are working for the Lord then we should give our best all the time. Will our best be different on different days? Probably, I mean if you are sick your best may only be working as hard as you can even though your body is yelling at you. Nonetheless, we should still give our best even if we are tired. Like I said before, people probably won't remember how you started something but how you finished it.

   1 Corinthians 9:24 says: "Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize." This verse brings home my message. If you run really hard at the beginning of the race but don't do your best at the end you won't get the prize. That's why your last one has to be your best. Because, when you think to yourself, "oh I've worked so hard. I'll just slack off this one time" that one time could cost you a lot.

   So, do you work hard to do your best every day? Are you running the race to win the prize? What area of your life do you feel you need to work harder for God's glory?

   Image from here.