Listen to the Coach – Sunday, November 02, 1980
One of the distinguishing features of our way of life is the increasing number of people who are involved in sports or athletic competition. Most young people now participate in some form of organized sports program. And, of course, spectator sports have become a major focus for the use of leisure time in many of our lives.
There are many positive outcomes which can result from contact with athletic competition.
The rewards of disciplined practice, the thrill of pursuing an objective as a team, and the wisdom gained from the inevitable wins and losses are among those benefits.
There is another important lesson which successful athletes must learn. For regardless of athletic prowess or native ability, every individual who has aspirations to succeed in the world of competitive sports must first learn to listen to the coach—to listen to the person who has been there before, to the person whose judgement is born of long seasons of preparation and experience. It is the coach’s advice and counsel which must be placed before the noisy urgings of the crowd, or even before one’s own instincts.
Life, too, demands of us this same lesson. And we who participate in this most important contest of living must also learn to heed the voice of the coach: our success and our happiness depends upon it.
And so we turn to the Mentor of life for counsel concerning the rules and strategies for success in this existence.
Those who knew Jesus best referred to Him as the Good Shepherd. This title was used because of the Savior’s wise advice and admonitions: just as the shepherd would lead his flock to green pastures and sufficient water; so too, heeding the words of the Master Teacher will lead us to an abundant life.
And yet, many times instead of receiving counsel from the Author of Life, we accept advice from those who may know little or nothing about the ways to happiness and eternal life.
For in the place of the wise guidelines for successful living which Jesus left us, we many times substitute the unwise persuasions of friends, the urgings of fad or fashion, or the tenuous logic of our own reasoning. And in so doing, we run the risk of losing the rewards of obedience to true principles.
And so, just as the best athletes listen to the coach, may we seek to know and then follow the Shepherd of mankind.
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November 02, 1980
Broadcast Number 2,672