A Christian competitor is a thankful competitor. Every time you step onto the field of competition, your heart is exploding with thankfulness, because you are abundantly grateful for God’s blessings. You have a deep conviction that your gifts, talents and skills to play and to compete come from Him alone. You never take it for granted. Every stride, swing, shot, pass, goal and point is a response to God’s goodness. The way you compete is marked with, Thank you God, because you count all of God’s blessings in your life. You always show gratitude.

Football players come to camp and are handed a binder filled with plays, formations, and adjustments built to withstand any opponent during the season. A lot of work, foresight, and detail went into putting together what could be a championship playbook. However great a playbook may be, though, it is useless without memorization and proper execution.

Have you ever noticed that, when racing, runners tend to wear the lightest outfit or the least amount of clothing possible? From the weight of their shoes to the amount of hair on their heads. Why is this so important to them? The answer is easy: because the less you have weighing you down, the faster you will be and the more endurance you will have.

The same principle applies to the Christian life. Several times in his letters, Paul relates our lives as Christians to running a race. When running this race as Christians, God wants us to run with perseverance because He has so much set out for us to do. But, when we allow sin to cling to us, it slows us down.

In my first year as a football coach, I was unsure of what to expect. But I went into the season with one goal: being satisfied not with producing a winning record, but with producing winning athletes.

Billy Graham once stated that one coach would influence more people in one year than the average person would in a lifetime. This was an idea I took to heart. At the beginning of the season, I had no idea who my players were or what their backgrounds were like, but I did know one thing: while they were on my team they were going to learn not only about football, but about life and God.

Despite not possessing any superb physical attributes, I discovered the Lord can still allow everyone to pursue their own path toward success. Not all men have been blessed with strong athletic physiques and growing up as a thin kid living on a cattle farm in western South Dakota, the odds were against me achieving any athletic success. However, the Lord had other plans for me!

At the 70-mile mark I started to cramp up in my calves. I began to “super-hydrate,” attempting to prevent the inevitable. At about that point, there was a “bail out” where riders could take a short-cut to the finish line but not complete the full 105 miles. Determined to press on and complete the ride, I passed it.