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