( There’s nothing particularly relevant to coaches or athletes in the picture this week, but when I did a search for “scared face”, this one was too good to pass up.)
FEAR. The very word brings to mind vivid images and memories. Fear is powerful. It can make us do all kinds of things; some good, some not so good. Fear inspires me to behave responsibly at times. For example, I pay my electric bill, not because I have a warm, rosy relationship with KCP&L, but because I fear having my power turned off. Fear clearly isn’t a bad thing in all circumstances.
However, when fear becomes a primary motivator in the workplace, or in relationships, it’s another story altogether. Over and over, we read in the Bible that we are to “fear not”, or “don’t be afraid”. The exact phrase “do not be afraid” appears 70 times in one commonly used transalation of the Bible.
Why does God work so hard to hammer home the point that fear is the enemy? It makes sense if you think about it. Fear can certainly be an outstanding short-term motivator, but fear has been clearly tied to: stress and employee dissatisfaction, reductions in creativity, resistance to taking direction, and overall poor performance. None of those things embody how we were created to live. Nothing on that list describes what we’re hoping to accomplish in the lives of those we lead.
As a coach, although I make no claim to be God, my players should fear me in the sense that they have a healthy level of respect for the position and authority I have. Beyond that, though, fear has little, if anything, to do with leading people to achieve optimum levels of performance. Fear is debilitating and enfeebling. Help an athlete overcome fear, and you have set that person up for their best possible chance at success, in all aspects of life.
We face similar challenges off the field. When I find myself grappling with an uncertain future, and playing the ‘what if?’ game, (what if I mess up my kids? what if I lose my job? what if we lose this game? what if we lose two in a row? what if I write a lousy blog post? what if we hold a clinic and nobody shows up?) all of those questions are 100% coming from a place of fear. And that kind of fear is a clear demonstration of my lack of faith. The kind of faith that trusts that God is who He says He is. The faith that believes He has me and my life firmly in His grip. The faith that knows that “perfect love drives out fear” (1 John 4). In the famous Bible story, when Peter walked on the water to go out to Jesus, (Matthew 14), he was doing fine until “he saw the wind, he was afraid”.
Where do I have my eyes? On Jesus, or on the “wind” in my life?