God is My Coach

Sometime things become so familiar that they lose their power. It is easy to take things for granted. This is true of the people, places and things in our lives. Including our faith.

 

Case-in-point, Psalm 23. It is a much loved Psalm, and is so familiar that the deep significance of it can be easily lost on us. So, think about the opening line, “The Lord is my shepherd.” What an extraordinary claim, what a thing to say! The Lord, God the creator of everything is the one who shepherds me.

 

As we make our way through the rest of the Psalm the claims get all the more extraordinary. The all powerful God is also the one who takes care of me, leads me and revives me. This almighty God frees me from fear and I can rest in the comfort of God’s correction (rod and staff). This same God allows me to eat at ease with my enemies, providing me with more than I need. I can trust in this God for ever.

 

We could choose others to lead us. We can take others as our examples. And they don’t all have to be bad choices. I tried to play hockey like Bobby Orr for example. It was not a bad choice. In fact, a pretty good choice, if you ask me. I suppose that I could have tried to be like Bobby Orr and still have the Lord as my shepherd.

 

The real question here is, when it comes right down to it, who will be my shepherd? Who will lead me in my life to green pastures and still waters? Who will revive my soul?

 

The most outstanding part of this understanding of God is that this creator God who is willing to be my shepherd and to lead me along right pathways does it all “for his name’s sake.” In other words, God does what God does because it is in God’s nature. There is no other reason, there’s no need to try and figure it out: God creates because God creates; God loves because God loves; and God is my shepherd because God is my shepherd.

 

The person writing Psalm 23 is willing to say out loud an extraordinary thing: God loves us so much that God is willing to follow us around, lead us to good places and to never quit on us.

 

The 23rd Hockey Psalm

The Lord is my coach
                I shall get my fair share of ice time.
The coach makes me sit on the bench
                                when I am tired
                and gives me plenty of Gatorade.
There my soul is revived
                and I am familiar with the playbook,
                all because the coach is the coach.
Though the play gets tough
and it feels like sudden death overtime
                I have no reason to fear
                I am not alone
                I am tapped on the shoulder
                                and sent on another shift.
There is a game going on
                and the opposing team is here,
                but I have been blessed
                with everything I need for the game,
                                and more.
Surely the goodness and mercy of the coach will follow me wherever I go.
                And I will be
                                in my coach’s rink for ever.