CWE Pre Camp Devo #5

2 Peter 1:5-6a

“For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge;  and to knowledge, self-control...”

James 1:19-27

My dear brothers and sisters, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, because human anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires.  Therefore, get rid of all moral filth and the evil that is so prevalent and humbly accept the word planted in you, which can save you. Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says.  Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like someone who looks at his face in a mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like.  But whoever looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues in it—not forgetting what they have heard, but doing it—they will be blessed in what they do. Those who consider themselves religious and yet do not keep a tight rein on their tongues deceive themselves, and their religion is worthless.  Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.

“THE COACH”

“ARE YOU KIDDING ME?  ARE…YOU…KIDDING ME?”  This is what I thought to myself after hanging up the phone inearly May 2011.  “This is unbelievable, simply unbelievable,” I continued to privately whine.I had just received a telephone call from my close friend, Mark Turgeon, the Head Basketball Coach at Texas A&M.He dropped the bombshell that he was resigning his position, effective immediately, to take the head basketball coaching job at the University of Maryland.  Not only did I like Mark, not only did I love his family (his son Will isone of our campers), and not only did I think he was a dadgummed good basketball coach, but the timing was absolutely terrible.  All the significant coaching changes take place in March, or at the latest early April.  In other words, all of the good basketball coach replacements were surely gone.  “What a debacle,” I thought to myself. 

Nonetheless, soon enough, a search for a new coach began.  After a brief but intensive search, a new coach was named.  His name…Billy Kennedy, the former head basketball coach at Moorhead State University (where in the heck is Moorhead State?).  Though I had visited with Coach Kennedy briefly over the phone before he officially accepted the position, I still had no real concept of who he was. But the fact of the matter was he was now our coach.  He was now my coach.  And so it was that a day or so later I hopped in my little Cessna 182 and flew from central Arkansas to College Station to welcome and meet our new coach, Billy Kennedy.  What I found was the genuine article: no pretense, no self-centered ego, no glad-handing.Simply a quiet, genuine, confident, disciplined man…and a believer.

I got to know Billy very well, very fast.  My wife and I travelled with the Aggie Basketball team on an overseas pre-season trip.  I watched him as he interacted with players, with other coaches, with officials, and with regular guys like me…and I liked it.  And I liked him.  I watched as in early October, on the eve of his first ever Division 1 basketball season, he announced that he was taking a brief leave of absence because he had been diagnosed, in his mid-40s, with early onset Parkinson’s disease, a potentially debilitating disease of the central nervous system.  I watched as he dealt with the doubt of fans, players, school officials, and others.  I watched as he recovered.  I watched as he returned to coaching and I watched as he endured the perfect storm of things that can go wrong to a collegiate basketball team.  Multiple devastating injuries to key players, the unexpected and ill-advised transfer of a key freshman, the consequences of a severely overrated team to begin with, and the multiple losses that occurred as a result of all of the above.  And as I watched, I learned.  As I watched, I gained a deep respect.  As I watched, I saw the confirmation of a witness that was expressed without many words.  I saw a man who practiced self-control in the worst of times, when most of us would have blown a gasket, thrown a pity party, or otherwise lost control. 

Peter and James are very clear in today’s scriptures.  They tell us the excellence of our faith, of our goodness, and of our knowledge must be accompanied by self-control.  A lack of self-control, exhibited by temper or a lack of self- discipline, is the easiest way on earth to discredit our witness as Christians.  This summer you will be challenged by kids, by peers, by supervisory staff, by me, as well as by heat, by the intensity of the summer, and by physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual exhaustion.  Regardless of how much good you have done, if you do not exercise self-control…patience, a disciplined tongue, a steady work ethic, and a positive attitude…all your witness, all the good you may have done, risks being lost in an instant. 

This characteristic(self-control) that Peter says is a requisite of all effective believers(and, therefore, the effective summer staff member) requires great discipline, great courage, great security, and most importantly, the great power of the Holy Spirit.  Your prayer for this summer should be that God will use the laboratory of camp to provide you with the ability to learn and practice self-control.  To not do so is to risk, as Peter says later in his epistle, being ineffective and unproductive in your walk.

As for the coach, his consistency of character, including self-control, provided him the opportunity of witness during what I would consider likely the most difficult time of his life… professionally, personally, emotionally, physically, and perhaps spiritually.  He never reacted poorly to the negativism thrown his way, the doubt publicly expressed by some, or the unfortunate experiences of a first season gone awry.  Now, as he approaches season 2, he exhibits no outward effects of Parkinson’s disease.  He and his staff have assembled a stellar recruiting class.  His remaining players understand his demands, his requirements, his commitment, and his personal interest in their lives.  And everyone who knows him marvels at his ability to maintain his composure, his focus, his self-control when almost no one else could.  Watch out SEC, here comes Billy Kennedy.