As I watched my wife’s tennis team taking practice with the team’s coach, prior to a morning match, I noticed the disconnect between what the coach wanted the players to focus on and what they primarily focused on. And you guessed it; they focused on errors. The coaching lesson was on the three primary ways to play points and the attention was spent on mishits, technique, and looking at the rackets and asking, ‘why did you let me down?”

The coach bought all the ladies to the net and said, “Focus on the solution. When you focus on what you did wrong you sap energy and destroy confidence. Focus on what you know works—focus on the solution.”

In life as in tennis—I tend to focus on problems and forget what I know to be true, and that is how and where solutions are to be found.

Of all the problems encountered in life, the most critical revolve around my relationship to my Creator. It is in this arena that true solutions must be found and acted upon, and these solutions are profoundly simple and direct: pray, change course (repent), follow Christ, and accept His unconditional love. 

We seem to be in a perpetual state of disconnect with our eternal Coach and our activity on the court of everyday life. Thank God that our errors are forgotten and the result at the end of The Big Match is victory.

Photo Credit: https://www.padelcentrum.nl/en/is-padel-a-sport-for-frustrated-tennis-players/