Catching a Lion by it’s Mane
August 12, 2009
During practice today we discussed the story of David in the bible. Most people are familiar with the story how David, a small shepard boy, strikes down Goliath. It’s an incredible story of having confidence in God. But David’s confidence did not come out of nowhere. David is explaining to King Saul why he is ready to go fight Goiliath.
34 But David said to Saul, “Your servant has been keeping his father’s sheep. When a lion or a bear came and carried off a sheep from the flock, 35 I went after it, struck it and rescued the sheep from its mouth. When it turned on me, I seized it by its hair, struck it and killed it. 36Your servant has killed both the lion and the bear; this uncircumcised
Philistine will be like one of them, because he has defied the armies of the living God. – I Samuel 17 34-36
David was ready to fight because he had confidence in God and spent time preparing by taking of sheep. I can image having to chase a lion down and beating it until it released it’s prey from it’s mouth. Even after that if the lion attacked David he would beat it to death. So you can imagine fighting another human…or giant was not a big deal for him. I encouraged the boys to enjoy this time as we prepared for our games. It is hard, and we will push but our hope is that our preparation will allow us to have Godly confidence once games roll around.
Plus most of practice was rained (well lightning) out but I feel we made adequate use of our time with a good look at our play book and some weight lifting. Unfortunately though my windows were cracked…
Leadership
August 3, 2009
Work hard and become a leader;
be lazy and become a slave.
Proverbs 12:24 (NLT)
This Thursday concluded my first football camp as head middle school coach at Bulloch Academy. At the end of every camp we pass out t-shirts that have a theme that has something to do with the camp or the season that lays ahead. For this year I chose the above verse from proverbs. It is so significant to what I want to teach out at Bulloch Academy.
We can chose to be leaders or slaves. We have a decision every day to be dominated by the things around us in ways that influence us in directions we do not even understand as it is happening. We can choose to be slaves to the things around us or we can choose go the opposite way. The good thing about most proverbs is they give us an either or choice. This verse tells that instead of being lazy we can work hard and become leaders.
This applies so much to one of the life lessons I’ve learned through football. We can work hard and be/become leaders on the football field, class room, and in our community. Jesus came so that we can have life and life to the fullest (John 10:10). I have been so blessed to have great coaches and pastors that have helped me to understand this. I just hope to pass it along.
David Donnan 