What’s Your Word in 2021? (Bot9 #287)
I started following Jon Gordon’s lead a couple of years ago with his “One Word” focus at the beginning of the year. It’s far more powerful than a New Year’s Resolution in that it provides a singular focus for your year. You can succeed. You can fail. You can remember. You can forget. You can learn. At the end of the year, you become more of an expert in your word.
Last year I felt led to focus on the word “Invite” for 2020. Little did I know all that God would invite us into over the past year! In the midst of one of the hardest spring seasons of my life as we weren’t allowed to play a single game with potentially our most talented collection of players, God was faithful as He invited me to lean on Him. I finished the second book in the Well Coached series. I invited others to share how they integrate the Bible into their coaching. I was invited to create and implement a faith integration plan for our athletic department along with our girls basketball coach who had been developing processes and a curriculum with our chaplains. I was invited to write an entry for Baylor’s Faith and Sport blog, audit a faith & sport seminary class through Baylor, and take faith and sport integration certification courses through Baylor’s FSI program. While I was inviting others, God was inviting me into new areas at the same time!
I learned a lot about “Invitation” this past year. I’m learning to invite God into every single thing I do. During one of our seminary classes, we had to do a physical workout. Halfway through, the professor asked us if we had invited God into the workout. The very idea blew my mind. I had never considered asking God to be present in the workout…unless I needed Him at the brink of failure or exhaustion! God desires our invitation in every moment of our day. I also learned that invitation requires healthy relationships. People who come into your invitation with baggage from past wrongs tend to deny your invitation or enter in with doubt instead of trust. If you desire to invite others into a deeper relationship with God at any point in time, it’s vital to keep relationships clean. You have to maintain healthy horizontal relationships and not only a vertical relationship with God.
After all God taught me in 2020 about my word, I’m excited about the word God has given me for 2021.
Engage.
It’s important to understand how engaging is against our human nature. The story of Adam in the garden shows us this. Adam sits back and allows Eve to be tempted without intervening and then succumbs along with her. Engagement is against our flesh. It’s uncomfortable, it’s difficult, and we don’t want to do it. Far too often we, as men, are more focused on other things than engaging in our most important areas:
The beautiful thing about the Biblical story is that Jesus provides us with a very different picture of engagement. He leaves heaven to engage with His people. He doesn’t sit back passively outside of human history, but engages directly in it. We need to do the same and do so in alignment and agreement with His teachings.
In 2021, I’m going to continue to see every relationship as an opportunity to engage. I’m going to engage in difficult conversations. I’m going to engage with the Lord and help others to do the same, on and off the field. I want to engage more players and coaches through what I write. While I don’t expect to reach the 1,000,000 person mark James Clear did this past year, I want to continue to engage more and more people in the community by adding value to their spiritual lives.
I’m looking forward to how this word will enrich my life in 2021. What word is God putting on your heart and mind for 2021?