Coaches

I've learned a few things from my dad. And one of those things is when you are talking about gospel principles, you should relate it to you so it makes sense to you. And i figure thats what i should do more of. Plus its prob way more interesting for you to read...

So all throughout my football experiences I have had coaches. I've never been on a team that had only 1 coach. I have always had a linebacker coach, a defensive coordinator, and a head coach. They all had different roles in what happened with me as an individual. When we were at practice, I always had my linebacker coach with me. He would give specific instruction for me to become better. He would see my habits and abilities on the practice field, then the next day when we would watch film he could either tell me good job or he could instruct me on how i could be better. He was always right in the middle of things with me. He would be there to yell at me for good or bad.

Next I had my defensive coordinator. He was much more of an authority figure in my experiences. He was in charge of the defense as a whole and would spend most of his time coaching the defense as a whole. We would sit in the film room and he would explain what the opposing offense would try and do. What the plays they were working on were and how we were going to defeat them. He would give us more of a BIG PICTURE view of the game. Sometimes he would come to our meetings and help instruct us with our linebacker coach, but most of the time he was working with the whole defense.

And lastly I had my head coach. He was the one who ended up having the final say in who plays and what we were going to do. In practices I rarely saw him, and i never got any instruction from him, other than a "good job" or and explecitive of his choice during practice. He gave the defensive coordinator authority to run the defence how he wanted him to. My head coach trusted my defensive coordinator to not do anything that he wouldn't do. And I could go to my head coach if I had any personal concerns or anything that was troubling to me.

And now how does this relate to the gospel? Well we are all players in this game of life. We have a head coach, God. He seems to keep his distance from us and has His servants here on earth to do the coaching. Our defensive coordinator is the prophet. We have him here to give us direction as to the whole scheme of things. He warns us about dangers just as my defensive coordinator warned us about trick plays and the tendencies of the opponent. During practices he would seldom come by and specifically instruct me, but he would teach my linebacker coach how to do things so that my linebacker coach could teach me. And lucky for us, in life we have several linebacker coaches. We have our stake presidents, our bishops, our boy scout leaders, or young womens leaders. Lots of coaches out there for us. And we even have two linebacker coaches who have played in the game before, who have been in our shoes before, and who want nothing but the best for us. Those two are our parents.

In this life of football there are going to be setbacks. We're gonna take some cheap shots and its gonna hurt. But if we listen to our coaches. If we make the choice to do what they've asked, if we work at being the best person we can (by practicing), then we will find success. And just like on the football field, we have teammates. We have our friends and our family members to strengthen us. And just like you wouldn't choose the worst people to be on your football team, you should choose the spiritually strong to be on your team. Thats the great thing about it, YOU get to choose who is on your team. YOU get to decide to follow your coaches. And YOU get to decide with your choices what kind of player you're gonna be.