March 11, 2024 - Larry Bird Agrees With Me... (at least on some of this Game Plan)

I’m sitting in the airport in Houston following a weekend lf celebration as I was privileged to officiate a wedding for a dear friend who is a former apprentice in our Talyor-Made INVESTment Training Camps… it was great weekend but now I’m not due to land back in FL until 1:30am or so… and then a bit of drive back to the house. Yet there is work due tomorrow, so taking advantage of my time in the terminal…

As I was driving back to the airport today, I started thinking about all the travel I get to do and my mind wandered back to 5th grade and the excitement I had when the sheet went up after tryouts for the 6^th grade team and I was one of three 5^th graders that made the “travel team.” It was so cool getting to load the bus and suit up at other schools to play. And to this day I love to suit up on the road for ministry “away games.”

As I prepped for the wedding a word that is commonly fretted over came up… the idea of submission. Before I give you a really cool definition I read, let me tell you how that fit with previous sports reading I was doing.

Many of you know that I have a very basic philosophy I incorporated as a coach/AD; it states: “Players Play, Coaches Coach, Refs Ref, Fans Cheer.” So, it caught my attention when I saw a Larry Bird quote where he said, “One thing about me is I always say the coaches coach and the players play. Whatever they tell you, you’ve got to do. You may not like it but you’ve got to do it. That’s what they do. That’s their expertise.”

This is coming from one of the greatest basketball IQ guys ever… BUT he is adamant about understanding and playing one’s role! He went on to say that his role was to win basketball games so he “brought it every night…laid it on the line every night….’

I talk often on these weekly Game Plans about the importance of team and one’s responsibility to the team. As I was preparing for the wedding ceremony, I found myself in Ephesians. In chapter 5 there are some very specific role challenges for wives and husbands… and then chapter 6 talks of role responsibilities for children and parents…. bondservants and masters (employees and bosses.) Really it deals with attitudes more than actions… attitudes of submission. There’s that word again…

Yet these are found in the letter in context that is dealing with God’s will for how we should look as a team. For the wedding I went back even further in the letter to the beginning of chapter 4, and in doing so even challenged the audience to imagine what are team would look like if we lived according to the Playbook.

Ephesians 4:1 I, therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you to walk worthy of the calling with which you were called.

Paul, after reminding us of all that Christ had done for us says “therefore” (because of that) “walk worthy of the calling.” So, what does “worthy” look like”? SUBMITTED

Ephesians 4:2-3 with all lowliness and gentleness, with longsuffering, bearing with one another in love, endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.

I want to be a part of a team like that… one where we are focused on one another!

Ephesians 5:21 Submitting to one another in the fear of God.

So here is the general idea of the definition I read and now challenge the team with… my Coach B maxim… to submit involves willfully placing oneself under another… IN ORDER TO LIFT ONE ANOTHER UP!