Motivational Speech
Motivational Speech
Judges 7:9-11
That same night the LORD said to him, “Arise, go down against the camp, for I have given it into your hand. But if you are afraid to go down, go down to the camp with Purah your servant. And you shall hear what they say, and afterward your hands shall be strengthened to go down against the camp.” Then he went down with Purah his servant to the outposts of the armed men who were in the camp.
My college soccer coach was typically the no-nonsense type, in the mold of Bobby Knight—who notoriously screamed at his players and threw chairs and gesticulated around the locker room like a drill sergeant at boot camp. In fact, one defender on my team, a guy from Rochester, New York, named Dan, needed that sort of tough love. If Dan wasn’t running hard enough, or if he was slacking off in his defensive duties, Coach let him have it, and it actually made Dan a better player. But not me. Coach tried that on me during my freshman year and it had the opposite effect. But I’ll never forget one occasion, after a particularly poor game, Coach called me to his office, with no one else around, sat me down, and calmly asked, “Seth, what’s going on? Is everything okay with your studies? You’re better than that—and I need you at your best.” Well, that more empathetic manner of exhortation got through to me, and I never played a game of soccer that poorly ever again.
Friend, Almighty God is the best Coach, isn’t He? He knows us inside and out. He knows what makes us tick and what ticks us off. He knows how to thunder from Sinai and how to meet us by a Terebinth tree in our back yard. He knows that when Joshua’s lying prostrate in the dust after the fall of Ai, he needs a firm kick in the pants to get him going again. And He knows that when Jacob’s at his wits’ end, he needs to wrestle all night long and walk away with a few bruises from the triumph. And He knows that when Gideon’s deathly afraid, he needs another word of comfort and reassurance rather than a chair thrown his way.
Oh, that we would disciple those in our care the way God disciples us!