Every time I’ve lost a game, my dad has always at some point in the postgame conversation said, “Well, you can’t win ‘em all.” As most short words of wisdom he has shared with me (as is his style, concise and to the point, but profound usually) I disagreed with it and didn’t like it at first. But the more life experience I gain, the more I see that it is true, and the more I see that you’re not supposed to “Win ‘em All”. I watched 18 basketball games this weekend, at the end of the tournament there were 6 champions, and 18 teams who lost, the last 18 of the hundreds of schools who “didn’t win it all.” Thousands of athletes did not get to feel their ultimate goal come to fruition.
So what is the point of me being a coach? A teacher? A Christian? I have been student teaching for several weeks now with a challenging bunch of students. Some of them I am not going to be able to win over. Odds are stacked strongly against me that only a handful of them will even graduate. So why try? Why, with that much failure rate, try and teach these kids about life, much less mathematics. Another realization I have come to is that you can never make anyone do anything, it is their choice. And when it comes right down to it these kids have to decide whether or not they want to succeed or fail. Not just in my classroom, but in general.
I’ve been flipping through pages of my Bible and I can’t find anywhere in it a place that Jesus forced his will upon another? Things like “Let him who is without sin cast the first stone” and “deny yourself, take up your cross and follow me” and “Forgive them, for they know not what they do.” The world’s greatest teacher, the world’s greatest coach never ruled with an iron fist. He simply lived and said this is the best way, this is THE way, and the choice is yours whether or not to follow me. And because of that approach combined with living the best way, he has more followers than any other single human that ever lived. Jesus didn’t focus on the failure of the many, though he did his best to reach out to each and every one, he just did everything he could to save as many as he could, and that is all he asked out of any of us.
John Wooden, the greatest coach of all time in any sport, never had an iron will either. He just asked that players do things the right way, and they were free to play for someone else if they didn’t want to. Gandhi didn’t become one of the most influential people in the history of the world with demands, but by example and making simple choices. By contrast the most infamous and awful people in history were the ones who tried to force what they believed was “right” upon people. Their names will not get recognition here, but they failed to say the least.
I used to want to coach with an iron fist. I used to want to teach with such charisma and power that the students had no choice but to learn from almighty me. While I may “win ‘em all” over for that point and time in my classroom, there is no way I can make a lasting impact on a student’s life in a positive way with that attitude. The only way to teach, the only way to coach, the only way to live is to do it like Jesus did. Check out Philippians 2:1-11, it spells it out perfectly.
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Philippians%202:1-11&version=NIV
Not every student you teach will pass. Not every child you mentor will reach their full potential. You may never coach a team that wins a championship. You will not have a perfect marriage. You might not even find the perfect spouse. You will not raise perfect children. Your career will not always be successful. Your government will never get itself together. And you most definitely not convert every person on this earth to walk as Jesus did. You can’t win ‘em all.
But you can win some. Some of your students’ lives will be changed forever. Some of your players will buy into your philosophy. Some of you will win championships. Someone will be led to Christ because of something you did for somebody sometime. It’s not about winning ‘em all. It’s about making the choice to try your best to reach your potential and help as many others to reach it as possible. Do not worry about changing someone else. That is there decision. Just do everything you can to give them every opportunity to do it. Then you have won.
