Two Minute Drills from Coach Joe Gibbs

[Judy Harder]

Reversing the Trend

Whether from being left untended or from constant use, things will always be inclined to grow old and deplete. Knees will start to ache and catch. Tires will wear thin. Gaskets will leak. Organization will trend toward chaos. The deodorant stick will shrink smaller and smaller. Clothes will wrinkle. Dust will accumulate. It's the nature of life. Downhill. Showing age.

It's even the nature of marriage. What starts with candlelight, tuxedo, and a minister's blessing slowly gives way to the late local news, complaints about your snoring, and fixing yourself the last piece of toast for breakfast. Where's a little romance when you need it? Probably not under warranty.

So whether you like it or not, today will be another battle against bone loss, systems malfunction, and tooth decay. And to keep the same sorts of erosion from happening in your home, the Bible offers the following prescription: "encourage one another daily, as long as it is called Today, so that none of you may be hardened by sin's deceitfulness" (Hebrews 3:13) . . . or by life's constant drain and desire to drag you down, if not drag you apart.

Marriage may never outgrow a few toilet seat disagreements. But yours can withstand and even counteract the effects of time and age. A little encouragement from you today can go a long way.

Pray this prayer: God, help me not to stand by while my marriage loses any more of its luster. Give me the kind of heart that keeps loving, keeps investing. Show me the best way to bless my wife today.

Please visit Joe Gibbs' Website at www.GamePlanForLife.com for Joe's Video Blog and more!

[Judy Harder]

Costly Do-Overs

In Game Plan for Life, Coach Gibbs recounts the story from the Redskins' 2007 season when, in an effort to ice the opposing kicker in the closing minute of a two-point game, he mistakenly called two timeouts in a row. The fifteen-yard penalty walkoff put the Bills at much closer range, and the converted field goal proved the difference in a heartbreaking 17-16 Redskin defeat. No loss can be blamed on any one thing, of course, but this game ultimately came down to a crucial sideline mistake.

If Coach ever found himself in a similar situation, you can bet he wouldn't do that again.

Wonder, though, how many of the problems we cause ourselves are from repeat mistakes—things we should have known better, goofs we should have learned from before? Being consistently late, for example, always keeps us off-balance, apologetic, and at least semi-rude to others. We know that. Yet we keep running behind and not taking pains to be punctual. Pick whatever frustration of yours that eats away at your efficiency and attitude, and ask yourself what would be different if you had decided to do something about it long ago.

The Bible tells us to "hold on to instruction, do not let it go; guard it well, for it is your life" (Proverbs 4:13). Maybe instead of trying to come up with better ways of doing things, we'd save time by just not having to relearn things we know that already work.

Pray this prayer: Lord, make plain to me those faults and areas of neglect where I keep shooting myself in the foot. I want to be a man who's putting your Word and good sense into constant practice.

[Judy Harder]

Equal Opportunity Provider

Thomas Jefferson said it first, although legendary film producer Samuel Goldwyn is attributed with making the line more slick and famous: "The harder I work, the luckier I get."

We've all seen guys who overachieve—in sports, in business, in all kinds of professions. We've seen young football players from Division II directional schools who get signed as undrafted free agents , make the final cut, fill in for an injured starter, then turn low expectations into a Pro Bowl season. Hard work? Luck? You decide.

The person who wrote Psalm 1 in the Bible talked about the man who doesn't kid around when it comes to keeping his nose in the Scriptures. "Day and night" he makes learning God's Word a passionate pursuit. As a result, "he is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither. Whatever he does prospers" (Psalm 1:3). Good genes? Lucky breaks?

There's something about a man who reads and studies his Bible, not to win theological arguments, but just because he wants his life to be shaped, governed, and directed by God's ultimate truth. Psalm 119:98 says it makes him smarter than his enemies. Proverbs 1:4 says it transforms a young, inexperienced man into someone who's shrewd and clever, who knows the ropes.

Aren't you lucky to have that kind of resource sitting around? You are if you're ready to work at it.

Pray this prayer: Lord, I don't always know the best way to get much out of reading the Bible. But I ask you, by your Holy Spirit, to begin letting it speak clearly to me. I do want to learn. I do want to grow.

[Judy Harder]

Be Nice to Your Body

You may not know it to look at you. All you can see sometimes are the things you don't like—the extra weight you're carrying around your middle, the gray that's starting to pepper your temples and sideburns, the hair that's rubbed off your legs from wearing dress slacks all day.

But the Bible has this to say about you: "Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you received from God?" (1 Cor. 6:19).

Me? A temple?

Yep. As a believer in Jesus Christ, your heart has now become a place of residence for the Spirit of God. That makes your body a sanctuary, a special piece of construction designed to be treated with the same kind of care and decorum you exercise when you're at church. So for the same reason you don't scarf down nachos during worship service or wear your lawn-mowing clothes to Sunday school, you should treat your physical body with respect, honor, and a real sense of worth.

So before you go littering it up with another junk-food lunch or refusing to take it out for a walk, remember that this marvelous specimen of God-created equipment is not a thing to be taken lightly. Let's see some respect here. And pretty soon, you might even see less of those things you don't like.

Pray this prayer: God, I used to think that all you really wanted of me were spiritual things. But I want to be your man head-to-toe. Keep me encouraged to keep myself in good working order.

[Judy Harder]

The Game Plan

For three improbable afternoons at the recent British Open golf tournament, Tom Watson continually stood near or atop the leader board, smelling victory at an event he had won five times before, but not in more than twenty-five years. With each succeeding round and clubhouse interview, the spectacle became harder and harder to believe. Yet strangely, for the 59-year-old Watson, easy to explain.

He was on a "game plan," he repeatedly said, a secret code of attack he never revealed, except to say it existed and that he was on course with it. It was a game plan that took him to the 72nd hole and an eight-foot putt for par, inches away from an ageless wonder of a championship.

Game plans work. And though a slight bobble in execution at any point along the way can mean the difference between first and second, the fact remains that a good game plan can take you far—farther than you may have ever dreamed possible.

That's why the apostle Paul could say it's "not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me" (Philippians 3:12). Yes, missed putts can still prove costly. Missed opportunities can still nag at us. But what we lack in perfection is more than made up for as we "press on" with a set purpose. Life with a game plan is always superior to life without it.

Pray this prayer: Lord, I know I can do better than just taking a hit-and-miss approach to life. I need a game plan. I need YOUR game plan. Help me to see it in your Word, and put it into practice every day.

[Judy Harder]

Feel the Pain

You may be going through an awful lot right now. Maybe your company is shedding jobs and salaries, trying to keep from going under. Maybe one of the jobs they calved off was yours.

Maybe your marriage is really tanking at the moment. You can't say you haven't contributed to the problems, but you're trying as hard as you can now to make this work, to make this right. Still, you're not sure where things are headed.

Work. Family. Health. Finances. Between these major categories, life can get very complicated, both from things you've done as well as things that just happened. And if God feels very far away today, unconcerned and out of the picture, hear a word of encouragement from hundreds of years ago.

Throughout the Old Testament, God's people faced one crisis after another. Sometimes it was their own dumb fault; sometimes it came by way of surprise attack. But no matter how they got into their troubles, "in all their distress, he too was distressed" (Isaiah 63:9). When they hurt, He hurt. When they suffered, He suffered.

God has not lost the directions to your house. He's not waiting to work you in between 3:00 and 4:00 next Wednesday. God feels. He grieves. He knows what you're going through. You're not the only one hurting here. And His is the kind of hurt that knows how to help you.

Pray this prayer: Lord, thank you that you haven't forgotten me. It's good to know you're a God who's really alive, who's really here, and who genuinely cares. I'm counting on that today.

[Judy Harder]

One of the Main Things

Blocking and tackling. Hitting the open man. "Gentlemen, this is a football." The basics.

Sometimes in seeking  that extra half-second that takes us up an echelon, we can forget the fundamentals. We can lose sight of what got us here. But maybe, instead of the hundred things we try to juggle to make us faster, higher, stronger, a great life just requires that we remember two or three.

For example, when we get a biblical peek into heaven in the book of Revelation, where people are trying to describe why they're giving "glory and honor" to God, their reasoning is based on something you probably learned in kindergarten—"for you created all things, and by your will they were created and have their being" (Revelation 4:11).

God made you. Stop to think what that means . He made you with love, with intention, with enough unique detail that no one else on the planet—either now or in all the centuries past—has ever looked exactly like you. (I mean, think of how many combinations of eyes, ears, and noses that takes!)

Maybe some mornings, all you need to start your day is to look at your open hands, with their opposable thumbs and functional design, and realize that God has a purpose for you and for everything yet to happen in the next 24 hours. He's put too much thought into you to make you have to over think.

Pray this prayer: Lord, if I ever doubt my purpose in life, help me remember that you created me for a reason.  I know we're not just a bunch of randomly assembled body parts. Help me to live and worship you with that kind of intention.

[Judy Harder]

Walk Like a Winner

Sometimes a guy just knows he's going to play well that day. Something about the confident, relaxed mood he's in when he wakes up. Something about how smooth and straight that first drive sails off the tee. Something about the way his gear feels when he straps it on. He just knows it. He's on. Everybody'd better watch out.

And believe it or not, when it comes to your battle against a certain sin or habitual behavior, you can step onto the field today with that kind of confidence, even if you've had a losing record against it for a long time, even if you've been in one of your worst slumps ever.

The Bible says that "by his wounds"—by the sacrificial death of Jesus—"you have been healed" (1 Peter 2:24). "Have been." Past tense. Already taken care of. "Healed" of your sin problem. Which means that every time you cave in to it again, it's just because you want to, not because you have to. As the first part of that verse says, "He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness."

So if you want this day to result in victory, you've got every right to expect it—because part of winning is knowing you're better than the competition on any given day. And thanks to what Jesus has done, you really are.

Pray this prayer: Lord, after failing you so many times, I start to feel like I'm just not up to the challenge of being faithful. But I know You're faithful, and powerful, and able. Be all those things in me.

[Judy Harder]

An F for Effort

Just about everybody thinks they're good enough to at least squeak by into heaven. Put it all on balance, consider how hard they've tried, and God should be able to see they've done the best they could with what they had. They've been worse than some, sure, but better than most. When it's all said and done, if God's being fair, the scales ought to tip their way.

Well, there's the problem. The scales don't tip on the basis of being better than others. God's judgment has nothing at all to do with a person making good choices a certain percentage of the time. "When they measure themselves by themselves and compare themselves with themselves, they are not wise" (2 Corinthians 10:12). In fact, they're sadly deceived and mistaken.

If you're pinning your hopes on the outside chance that God operates on a sliding scale, hear what the Bible says: "It is not the one who commends himself who is approved, but the one whom the Lord commends" (2 Corinthians 10:18). And the only ones the Lord commends are those who are perfect—or those who've put all their trust in Jesus' ability to stand in for their imperfections.

"Whoever lives and believes in me will never die," Jesus said (John 11:25). Whoever lives and believes in himself will just die trying.

Pray this prayer: Dear God, I know I've been wrong to think I'm good enough to satisfy your high standards. Help me to see that I can never be what you want me to be until Jesus is living in me.

[Judy Harder]

How's Your Day Looking?

In Game Plan for Life, Os Guinness mentions this quote from a 90-year-old Winston Churchill: "Life has been a grand journey—well worth making once."

Once. That's all we get. No dry runs. No do-overs. This day you're living now is not a dress rehearsal  or a practice lap. You're on the stage. You're in the game. Start playing.

What this kind of thinking does is rip the disguise off today, revealing it to be every bit as momentous as the first morning on a new job or the night before major surgery. There are things to be said. Today. There are people to take notice of. Today. There are ordinary decisions to take seriously. Today. As the Bible says, "Teach us to number our days aright, that we may gain a heart of wisdom" (Psalm 90:12).

The newspaper commits a page or two each morning to dozens of death notices—guys who once supervised a work crew at the auto plant, who once coached boys' baseball on Saturday afternoons, who once served on the school board or were once active in the Rotary club. Once.

All those one-time daily things that could be said of you in the paper—about your family, your work, your interests, your passions—are they getting your best today? Clock's ticking down. Better get out there.

Pray this prayer: Dear God, I've been letting some things slide. I've been going whole weeks without my priorities being in balance. It's time to get this right. Show me what that means and how to get there.