SEPTEMBER 25, 2026

 “Because here’s something that’s weird but true: we don’t actually know what a positive or negative experience is. Some of the most difficult and stressful moments of our lives also end up being the most formative and motivating. Some of the best and most gratifying experiences of our lives are also the most distracting and demotivating. Don’t trust your conception of positive/negative experiences. All that we know for certain is what hurts in the moment and what doesn’t. And that’s not worth much.” 

― Mark Manson

ISAIAH 4-6

11Woe to those who rise early in the morning

to run after their drinks,

who stay up late at night

till they are inflamed with wine.

12They have harps and lyres at their banquets,

pipes and timbrels and wine,

but they have no regard for the deeds of the Lord,

no respect for the work of his hands. (5:11-12)

GALATIANS 3

26So in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith, 27for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. 28There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. 29If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.

JOURNAL 

One of the unexpected gifts of teaching and coaching seventh graders is that I get a front row seat to human nature before we have learned how to disguise it very well. I see every variety of self-sabotage, dishonesty, manipulation, excuse-making, blame-shifting, and avoidance. I watch kids make a bad decision and then compound it with three more bad decisions trying to escape the consequences of the first one. Sometimes the lie is so unnecessary that it almost makes me laugh. Other times it makes me incredibly angry.

But I am beginning to realize that what often makes me the angriest is not how different their behavior is from mine. It is how familiar it is. They are a mirror.

I recognize the kid who lies because the truth might cost him something. I recognize the kid who manipulates a situation to protect the image he wants other people to have of him. I recognize the kid who sabotages something good because failure on his own terms somehow feels safer than risking failure after giving everything he has. I recognize the kid who blames somebody else because accepting responsibility would require admitting something painful about himself. I recognize these things because, in different forms and with far more sophisticated explanations, I have done them too. Some belong to my past. Some, if I am willing to look closely enough, still belong to my present.

Every day I am surrounded by mirrors. And the mirror is not always comfortable. It shows me how hurtful some of my own actions have been. It shows me that manipulation does not have to be malicious to hurt someone. Dishonesty does not have to be elaborate to damage trust. Self-sabotage does not only affect the person doing it. The people who love us get caught in the wreckage. Perhaps most painfully, I can see how unnecessary so much of it has been. So many lies told to avoid consequences that would have passed. So much manipulation used to control outcomes that never needed controlling. So many relationships strained because fear convinced me that honesty, vulnerability, and surrender were more dangerous than deception.

Maybe this is part of what it means to become more in tune with God. I stop looking at the behavior of another person merely as something to condemn and begin asking what it reveals in me. The seventh grader standing in front of me may need correction, but perhaps God is correcting me at the same time. “Blessed is the one whom God corrects; so do not despise the discipline of the Almighty.” Correction becomes grace when I am willing to receive it.

That also changes how I see these kids. Their worst decisions are not necessarily declarations of who they will become. I know that because mine weren't. The selfish, dishonest, frightened, manipulative parts of my story did not have to be the final chapters. God has continued to expose them, discipline them, forgive them, and transform them. If that grace has been extended to me, then I should be capable of extending it to the seventh grader standing in front of me.

Perhaps that is why some of life's most uncomfortable experiences eventually become gifts. The mirror hurts, but I need the mirror. It reveals what is still out of tune. And rather than becoming angry at the reflection, I can allow God to use it. I can correct the kid while also allowing God to correct the coach. I can teach honesty while becoming more honest. I can confront manipulation while surrendering my own need to control. I can challenge self-sabotage while recognizing the places where fear still causes me to sabotage myself.

Maybe one of the greatest privileges of teaching and coaching these kids is that while I am helping them become who they were created to be, God is using them to do the same thing in me.

17“Blessed is the one whom God corrects;

so do not despise the discipline of the Almighty.^a

18For he wounds, but he also binds up;

he injures, but his hands also heal.

JOB 5:17-18

SEPTEMBER 24, 2026

 “Decision-making based on emotional intuition, without the aid of reason to keep it in line, pretty much always sucks. You know who bases their entire lives on their emotions? Three-year-old kids. And dogs. You know what else three-year-olds and dogs do? Shit on the carpet.” 

― Mark Manson

ISAIAH 1-3

17Learn to do right; seek justice.

Defend the oppressed.^a

Take up the cause of the fatherless;

plead the case of the widow. (1:17)

GALATIANS 2

 20I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. 21I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!”^e

JOURNAL 

Leadership is not about eliminating stress, difficulty, or uncertainty. Maybe I have been thinking about that backwards. The objective of life is not to arrange circumstances so that I am never overwhelmed. The objective is to become so in tune with God that I can engage whatever comes in the way He designed me to.

A musical instrument does not become beautiful because the music is easy. In fact, the most demanding music often reveals what the instrument is capable of producing. But before any of that matters, the instrument must be in tune. An instrument that is out of tune cannot reveal its full beauty no matter how skillfully it is played. The problem is not the difficulty of the music. The problem is that the instrument is not properly aligned.

Maybe the same is true of me. When I am out of tune with God, I begin trying to control circumstances, avoid discomfort, manage outcomes, and follow whatever emotion happens to be loudest. Fear, frustration, pride, anxiety, and desire start determining how I respond. Mark Manson's point about emotions is important because emotions are real, but they were never intended to be the sole authority directing my life. I need something greater by which to tune them.

Paul writes, "I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me." That changes the objective. Surrender is not losing myself. It is allowing God to tune me toward the person He created me to become. His Word, prayer, quiet, obedience, and the Spirit continually bring me back into alignment. They allow me to recognize when fear, emotion, ego, or habit has pulled me out of tune. Isaiah says, "Learn to do right; seek justice." Learning implies practice. Tuning is not something done once. An instrument must continually be brought back into tune, and so must I. That is why coming before God each morning matters. It is not simply a religious routine. It is recalibration. I am reminding myself who God is, who I am, what matters, and how I want to enter the day.

Perhaps the narrow road Jesus describes is not a life without difficulty at all. It is a life increasingly aligned with God in the middle of difficulty. I don't need every problem removed. I need the power, love, and self-discipline to meet the problem in front of me well. The hard things may even become the music through which God reveals what He has placed within me. So the question is not, "How can I make today easier?" It is, "Father, how can I become more in tune with You today?" Because when I am in tune with God, I can more fully become what He designed me to be and engage the life He has given me in a way that is good, beautiful, courageous, and life-giving.

Thank you, Father, for Your Word, Your Spirit, and another day. Tune my heart toward You. Let me stop asking You to remove every difficult note and instead surrender myself to Your hands so that my life can become the music You created it to make.

13“Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. 14But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.

MATTHEW 7:13-14

SEPTEMBER 23, 2026

 “A disciplined mind leads to happiness, and an undisciplined mind leads to suffering.” 

― Dalai Lama XIV, The Art of Happiness

SONG OF SOLOMON 6-8

7Many waters cannot quench love;

rivers cannot sweep it away.

If one were to give

all the wealth of one’s house for love,

it^c would be utterly scorned. (8:7) 

GALATIANS 1

10Am I now trying to win the approval of human beings, or of God? Or am I trying to please people? If I were still trying to please people, I would not be a servant of Christ.

JOURNAL 

Teaching seventh graders has a way of holding up a mirror. I can watch a student become frustrated, embarrassed, bored, excited, or angry and then immediately act out whatever he is feeling. From the outside, it is easy to call it a lack of self-control. But the more I watch them, the more I recognize myself. I may be better at disguising it, but I often do the same thing. I feel something and immediately believe I need to respond to it. Anxiety says worry, so I worry. Restlessness says move, so I move. Frustration says react, so I react. Fear says avoid, so I avoid. The emotion becomes the command, and I become its servant.

Even as I sit here writing this, I can feel the urge to get up and walk around. There is an energy telling me to move on to something else. But I don't have to obey it. I can notice it, allow it to be there, and continue typing. That seems incredibly small, but perhaps this is exactly where discipline begins. I used to think discipline meant fighting my emotions, suppressing them, or somehow making myself stop feeling them. I am beginning to understand that real discipline may be something very different. I can experience an emotion without becoming the emotion. I can feel fear without being controlled by fear, anger without reacting in anger, anxiety without chasing every anxious thought, and an impulse without obeying it. There is tremendous freedom in realizing that.

Maybe this is part of what Paul is getting at when he asks, "Am I now trying to win the approval of human beings, or of God?" Something is always asking for my obedience. Other people's opinions, my emotions, my fears, my appetites, my desire for comfort, or God. Discipline is deciding which voice gets authority. That also changes the way I think about the discipline I am trying to teach my students and players. Discipline isn't simply behaving correctly when a teacher or coach is watching. It is developing the ability to create space between what I feel and what I do. It is learning that discomfort does not require escape, anger does not require reaction, fear does not require retreat, and desire does not require satisfaction.

Perhaps that is where real confidence comes from. Not from believing I will always feel strong, peaceful, or motivated, but from knowing that whatever I feel does not have to determine what I do. A disciplined mind isn't a mind without emotion. It is a mind capable of experiencing emotion, listening to it, learning from it, and then choosing its response. My emotions can inform me, but they do not have to command me. God has given me the ability to choose what I serve, where I place my attention, and what I do next. That is freedom, and I am beginning to believe that kind of freedom is at the heart of discipline.

1The wicked flee though no one pursues,

but the righteous are as bold as a lion.

2When a country is rebellious, it has many rulers,

but a ruler with discernment and knowledge maintains order.

PROVERBS 28:1-2

SEPTEMBER 22, 2026

  “If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other.” 

― Mother Teresa

SONG OF SOLOMON 4-5

Eat, friends, and drink;

drink your fill of love. (5:1) 

2 CORINTHIANS 13

11Finally, brothers and sisters, rejoice! Strive for full restoration, encourage one another, be of one mind, live in peace. And the God of love and peace will be with you.

JOURNAL 

Years ago, I went through a really dark season. One of the hardest parts was feeling completely alone in what I was experiencing. I prayed for God to change my circumstances, remove the pain, and make things right. God did show up, but often in ways I never expected and sometimes completely contrary to what I was asking for.

The clip from The Legend of Bagger Vance has always spoken to me because Junuh is lost. Bagger tells him that inside every one of us there is "one true, authentic swing." Junuh hasn't really lost it. It is still there, buried beneath everything that has happened to him. Bagger's role isn't to give him something he never possessed. It is to help him find his way back to something that was there all along.

I think God has done something similar in my life. In those dark moments, I thought I needed Him simply to change my circumstances. What I really needed was for Him to lead me back to who I was and, more importantly, whose I was. I belonged to Him. I had always belonged to Him. I had simply lost sight of it beneath the fear, shame, disappointment, and uncertainty.

And maybe that is why our suffering can eventually connect us so deeply to other people. Everyone struggles. Everyone doubts. Everyone gets scared. Everyone waits, worries, cries, and hurts. We tend to believe our pain separates us from others, but perhaps our pain is actually one of the things that reveals how deeply we belong to one another.

My loneliness can become a desire to comfort. My hurt can become a desire to heal. My anger can become a desire to reconcile. My fear can make me more compassionate toward someone who is afraid. God doesn't have to waste any of it. The very things that once made me feel isolated can become the things He uses to help someone else find their way back.

Maybe that is what Mother Teresa meant when she said we lose peace when we forget that we belong to each other. We are all God's children. We are all imperfect. We are all carrying things others cannot see. We are all, in one way or another, trying to find our way home.

Jesus said people would recognize His disciples by the way they love one another. Sometimes that love is incredibly simple: a smile, a word, a hug, a note, encouragement, or simply standing beside someone who has temporarily forgotten who they are. Maybe God places us in each other's lives to do what Bagger did for Junuh: not to fix one another, but to patiently remind each other of what is still there and help each other find our way back.

Perhaps that is where real joy comes from. Not from finally reaching a life without struggle, but from allowing God to transform our struggles into love for someone else. Maybe peace isn't the absence of pain. Maybe peace is remembering who we are, whose we are, and that none of us were ever meant to find our way home alone.

34“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. 35By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”

JOHN 13:34-35

SEPTEMBER 21, 2026

 “When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty, I read them openly. When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up.” 

― C.S. Lewis, On Stories: And Other Essays on Literature

SONG OF SOLOMON 1-3

5Daughters of Jerusalem, I charge you

by the gazelles and by the does of the field:

Do not arouse or awaken love

until it so desires. (3:5)

2 CORINTHIANS 12

 Therefore, in order to keep me from becoming conceited, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. 8Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. 9But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. 10That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

JOURNAL 

Trauma has a way of trapping us in time. Something happens, often when we are young, and we develop ways of protecting ourselves from experiencing that pain again. We force things we do not need to force. We run from things we need to face. We lash out when we need to calmly assess. We smooth things over when we need to confront. We hate when we need to love. We remain stubborn when we need to forgive. I learned at Onsite years ago that many of these patterns are established when we are young and become automatic responses to fear, anxiety, rejection, and pain. Long after the original threat is gone, we can continue responding as though it is still happening. Trauma can keep us in a perpetual loop where yesterday dictates how we respond to today.

But I am beginning to think there is another way we become trapped. It is not only what we believe about our past that shapes how we live today. It is also what we believe about our future. A lack of positive expectancy can create its own kind of dysfunction. If I expect tomorrow to bring disappointment, failure, sickness, loss, or some catastrophe I cannot handle, then every problem today becomes larger than it really is. A setback becomes evidence that everything is falling apart. Difficulty becomes something to fear or escape rather than something to confront and engage.

Faith changes that perspective. If I truly believe that God is good, that He loves me, that His grace is sufficient, and that He is working even through circumstances I do not understand, then I can develop a positive expectancy about life. Not the childish belief that nothing bad will happen, but the childlike belief that whatever happens, my Father will be there. Paul prayed three times for his thorn to be removed, but God did not remove it. Instead, He said, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." The promise was never a life without difficulty. The promise was God's presence and power within it.

Maybe that is one of the great differences between fear and faith. Fear takes today's problem and projects it endlessly into tomorrow. Faith confronts today's problem while placing tomorrow in God's hands. When I believe God still has plans for me, there is something beyond the problem in front of me. There are people still to love, students still to teach, players still to coach, relationships still to deepen, things still to create, mistakes still to redeem, and lessons still to learn. There is purpose ahead that I cannot yet see.

Perhaps this is part of what C.S. Lewis understood about growing older while recovering the best parts of being a child. Maturity does not require abandoning wonder. The unhealthy child within me reacts from old wounds and fears, but there is another child within me capable of trust, curiosity, hope, love, imagination, and expectancy. Maybe healing requires recovering that childlike ability to believe there is still something good ahead.

Positive expectancy is not believing everything will work out according to my plans. It is believing God will be present and purposeful even when my plans do not work out at all. Trauma says, "This happened before, so protect yourself because it will happen again." Fear says, "Look at today's problem and imagine how bad tomorrow could become." Faith says, "God has been faithful, God is here now, and God will already be there when tomorrow arrives."

The past does not have to dictate today, and today's difficulty does not have to define tomorrow. I can confront what is in front of me, do the next right thing, and surrender the outcome. There is still something good ahead, not because I know what tomorrow holds, but because I know who holds me when it arrives.

1Therefore, rid yourselves of all malice and all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and slander of every kind. 2Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation, 3now that you have tasted that the Lord is good.

1 PETER 2:1-3