Kansas State University basketball team used to practice in the upper gym at Ahearn Fieldhouse. If you went one story up from the level of the basketball practice facility there were openings in the hall ways into where the team was practicing. Those openings were covered with chain link fencing and had benches in front of them to allow you to watch and listen to practice. When the men’s team practiced, there were always a good number of people watching practice.

One day when I showed up to watch practice, the only two players left on the court floor were Scott Langton and Mike Evans who were the two starting guards. They were playing a game of one on one against each other. Their one on one started at the top of the key where one man would have the ball and the other played defense. The one with the ball would try to drive by the defender or step back to shoot a jump shot. This one on one game continued for quite some time and the longer it went the more physical the game became. Hand checking on the hip was turning into shoving and elbows were becoming more like forearm shivers from football.

All of a sudden Scott Langton, who was playing defense, reached up and grabbed Mike Evans by the hair with his left hand and hit Mike in the face with his right fist. Mike immediately hit Scott with a right handed fist as he threw his left arm up to break Scott’s grip on his hair. And both of them threw fists at each other four or five times and then each one of them jumped back away from each other. Nasty words were yelled at each other for a few moments. Both of them just stood there looking at each other for about 10 seconds saying nothing.

Eventually, Mike picked up the basketball and slammed it hard onto the court floor and then caught it. He walked back to the top of the key and waited. Scott stood in his spot for a few moments longer and slowly walked back to the top of the key to play defense. The game of one on one began again and it was just as physical if not a little more than before.

That team in 1976-1977 won the Big 8 championship and lost to Marquette 67-66, in the NCAA tournament, on a controversial call towards the end of the game. Mike Evans was 6’1” and Scott Langton was 5’11”. The other three starters were all 6’5” tall. That team had more fight and determination in them than you can imagine.

The will to win is extremely important. How badly do you want to win? Mike Evans and Scott Langton showed how badly they wanted to win by continuing the game of one on one and continuing to practice after they most likely would love to have quit practice at that moment.

The ancient Chinese philosopher, Confucius, said it best, “The will to win, the desire to succeed, the urge to reach your full potential…these are the keys that will unlock the door to personal excellence.”

Some assistant football coaches are always assigned to a place in the press box or in one corner of the stadium to get a higher view of the field of play. The view from higher up allows the entire field to be seen from a better angle. They can see all 22 players on the field and can see potential possibilities for play calling on both sides of the ball. The coaches in the press box are then in contact with the coaches on the sidelines to help with suggestions and other ideas.

When we pray, we call to God for help, who is in a higher location and can see our lives from a better view point.

In a football game we know we are in a battle, a physical game that is about defeating our opponent on the field of play. In our lives most of us have no idea we are in a battle. It is a spiritual battle against satan and his fallen angels.

Coach Larry Toner said in a talk on prayer, “Bring someone to church with you who likes to fight” because that is what we are in, is a fight against satan.

This is the mentality we need to bring to prayer. We are fighting for our children, our spouses, our extended families, our churches, our friends and our own souls.

Do you see your prayer life as a fight against evil? Let me encourage you to call on the Most High God to look your life over and help you call some new plays.

1 Timothy 6:12 Fight the good fight of the faith. Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called when you made your good confession in the presence of many witnesses.

Cuonzo Martin 🔊🔊 — Must watch for all coaches pic.twitter.com/uRpdJ7EDwP

— CoachTube.com (@thecoachtube) February 11, 2020

Our football coach told us to put a piece of athletic tape on the front of our helmets on the first day of practice. We then wrote our last name on that piece of athletic tape in large letters. Coach said, “Very soon I will remember your names, but here at the start of the football season, there are too many of you that I don’t know.”

We as players knew the coaches name, but he didn’t know us. One day, early in the season, we were scrimmaging and one of my teammates made an outstanding tackle and coach yelled out, “Who is that guy?” It became very apparent to us football players, that we needed to do exactly what the coach wanted us to do; in the way he wanted us to do it, so he would know us.

The most important question in your life is not, “Do you know Jesus or are you saved?” The most important question of your life is, “Does Jesus know you?”

Matthew 7: 21-23 “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven. 22 Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name? Did we not drive out demons in your name? Did we not do mighty deeds in your name?’ 23 Then I will declare to them solemnly, I never knew you. Depart from me, you evildoers.”

Football players go to practice every day and get known by the coach and you will become aware of what the coach wants.

Christians are supposed to go to practice every day and get known by Jesus through Bible reading, prayer, worship. God’s desire for you will become apparent after you spend time with him, but first you must repent of your sin and believe in Jesus.

There are many videos of Paul Washer. You don’t want to hear what he has to say, but you need to hear what he has to say.

We run all day long. We get up late and race to work or school. We move quickly between classes or meetings and hardly have time to sit and think about anything. Noon hour comes and we eat quickly, if we get to eat at all and then we begin the afternoon in another sprint to the finish line of school or work. After work or school we have practice of sports and other children we have to take care of and something to eat for supper and then we may go to another job or other meetings in the evening.

And when we pray, if we do that anymore, we race through our prayers at warp speed, spitting out our wants and needs as fast as we live our lives.

My life is no different than your life. I have raced through life at 70 to 80 hours of work a week for years. Married, with three children and we were involved in sports, work, school, church and multiple jobs at one time. But one thing I have continued to do is to find time to pray.

Recently, I read a book named ‘Silence The Mystery of Wholeness’ by Robert Sardello. The author has some great thoughts about silence, but one thing, in the book, that has changed my thoughts on prayer is to slow down. He encourages you to say your prayers one word at a time with silence between your words. This includes your memorized prayers such as the Our Father, Glory Be or Oh my Jesus.

Here is what the author says about one word at a time praying, “The words echo in an inner way as we silently speak the outer words. In this echoing we can feel, if we pay attention, an incredible, seemingly unending depth in what we are saying. It is as if we have entered a place where the word has become a spirit. The flatness of speaking transforms into dimensional space. This depth can extend to the point that the words seem to be no longer coming from “me” as I know myself to be, but from a being within me that speaks. When we pray, it is as if a second person is within us praying at a depth we can hardly imagine. Through our presence within the Silence, our spirit-being is able to speak. When we pray in the more usual way, we are often not present with our spirit. The presence of Silence is necessary for our inner spirit voice to resound. With this kind of praying, prayer and meditation join as one.”

There are many ways to pray; words, no words, standing, sitting, kneeling, walking, with or with out other people whenever you feel the need.

Romans 8:26-28 Meanwhile, the moment we get tired in the waiting, God’s Spirit is right alongside helping us along. If we don’t know how or what to pray, it doesn’t matter. He does our praying in and for us, making prayer out of our wordless sighs, our aching groans. He knows us far better than we know ourselves, knows our pregnant condition, and keeps us present before God. That’s why we can be so sure that every detail in our lives of love for God is worked into something good.

Scripture from The Message.

My airplane pilot friend and I decided we were going to fly into Atwood Friday night for the football game. So we called a couple of our friends to fly with us. Friday night we left town at about 6:00 p.m. for the quick trip to Atwood and arrived there in plenty of time to catch a ride into town and watch the game.

After the game was over, we drove the courtesy car back to the airport and checked out our plane and took off headed north due to the wind was out of the north. There was no moon above as we left the ground. I was pilot in charge, sitting in the left seat as we took off and it was really, really dark out in front of us. There is almost nothing north of Atwood, since the airport is north of town. It was instrument flight conditions as we left the ground. But being just a visual flight rules pilot, I was not focused on my instruments, but was looking exclusively out the windshield.

I was pulling back on the yoke too much and at one point I could not pull it back anymore and was kind of fighting the yoke thinking what is going on? I looked over at my friend and he had his hand on the yoke and said to me, “Look at your instruments?” I did and saw immediately that the nose of the plane was too high.

So I pushed the yoke forward and put the nose of the plane where it needed to be and then did a 180 degree turn to head back home. As we headed south we flew right over Atwood and could see the long line of cars headed south on the highway. We now could fly VFR all the way home.

My pilot friend told me, as we flew home; that he had flown out of Atwood before at night and said it was good instrument training on a dark night. No telling what would have happened if my friend had not been with me that night.

Proverbs 13:20 Whoever walks with the wise becomes wise, but the companion of fools will suffer harm.

All great performances with instrument, voice or games of football are preceded by lots of practice sessions.

Do you remember when the football coach would yell this at the team or an individual, “The day I quit yelling at you is the day I don’t care if you’re on the team or not anymore!” The coach was always trying to get us to improve.

During a junior varsity football game in Garden City one night, I was doing my best to avoid the middle linebacker in the first half. That guy had hit me so hard on a play that I had become intimidated of him. I was an offensive end and on sweeps to my side of the line my job was to double team the defensive tackle with our offensive tackle just briefly, then I was to step into the path of the linebacker and take him out of the play. So as an intimidated football player, I was only doing half my job on sweeps to my side. I was just staying with the double team on the defensive tackle.

During half-time our football coach looked me directly in the eyes and said, “I am disappointed in how you are playing.” The coach knew exactly what I was doing. I also knew exactly what I had been doing.

Well for the next ten minutes of half-time I did some soul searching. I had to decide if I was going to do my duty or quit. You can still be out for football, but be a quitter. You quit doing your job. Eventually, the coach will put you on the bench and you may never again get the opportunity to prove yourself.

When the second half started I knew what was coming. The coach was going to call a sweep to my side just to see what I was going to do. Several plays into the second half the sweep play was called. When the ball was snapped I helped double team the defensive tackle briefly and then stepped into the path of the middle linebacker. I can still see the play in my minds eye as I approach the linebacker. My eye is fixed on the ear hole on the helmet of the linebacker. The next thing that happened was this huge collision. Other than the several concussions I sustained playing football, this collision was right up there in the top 10 of my greatest hits!

In life today who is telling you they are disappointed in you and trying to get you to improve? Who is your coach? You have to have a really good friend who will step out of his comfort zone to tell you that you may need to change or improve in some area of your life. Maybe your priest or pastor might give a really good sermon or talk sometime that might get you to thinking about what you need to improve or change in your life.

The Holy Spirit is also here on earth constantly working on us and trying to get us to change or improve our lives. The Holy Spirit wants us to repent and come into a relationship with God the Father. This is a quote of Jesus below:

John 14:26 But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things.

We all need to improve and change our ways. We need transformed all the way into our souls, the only part of you that will still be alive a 100 years from now! Listen to the coach, the Holy Spirit; he won’t give up on you, until you quit breathing on this earth.

Do the words silence and football go together? At first glance or thought I am sure you would say no, but actually the two words do go together.

Back during my playing days of high school football, our team would board the bus for the trip to the out of town game. The next thing that would happen is Coach would address the team. He did not want any noise on the bus. He would tell us to be quiet and think about where we were going and what we were going to do once we got there. This was in the days before cell phones, I-pods and even walk-man radios. The guys would bring books and magazines to read. When we did talk to each other on the bus it was in whispers.

It did not matter if it was on the road or we were at home in our own fieldhouse, coach expected us to be quiet during pregame. The loudest noise in the locker room was the sound of our cleats clicking on the cement floor as we dressed in our uniforms.

Now why do you suppose Coach wanted it quiet? He wanted us to concentrate on the game. He did not want distractions and wanted laser like attention focused on what each of us as individuals were going to have to do to be successful as a team. Football is best played with passion and purpose and passion and purpose can be found in silence. The same is true for daily living.

So in your life today do you ever seek out silence? Do you have a place you go to everyday to just escape from all the noise of this world? We need to escape the phones, computers, television, radio, I-pods, people, cars, trucks anything that makes noise.

Your silent place might be the living room fifteen minutes before everyone gets up or thirty minutes after everyone goes to bed. Maybe you can go out in nature and sit among the trees or at the edge of a lake. One of my favorite silent places to go to is the sanctuary of my church. I will go in the evening time when no one else is around and just sit in the back pew and just escape the noise and be in the presence of God.

God is still in the business of speaking to us. Faith is by hearing and hearing by the word of God and most of the time God will speak to us through his book the Bible as we read and study it. God will also speak to us through other people. Someday you may hear a sermon that you will think the pastor is speaking directly to you. God also still speaks directly to us. But you must be in that silent place of yours to ever hear him.

When you first go to this silent place of yours be prepared. The world will just descend upon you. You will think of all the things you should be doing instead of sitting silently before God. Stop! Relax! Take a deep breath and try to clear your mind. Just know that Satan is shooting fiery darts your way.

You may need to say a prayer. Maybe you need to read one chapter of the Bible, but slowly after several weeks of being in this silence every day you will start to look forward to this time alone with God. You will not want to miss this part of your day ever again. Shoot for five to ten minutes to begin with in this place of quiet and silence.

Committed Christians are prayer warriors. They find their place of silence and develop a relationship with God. Every relationship on this earth is a two way street where both people talk to each other. If you spend time developing a relationship with God in your place of silence, expect God to speak to you, because he will.

Psalm 46:10 Be still and know that I am God