Don’t Allow the Enemy to Throw You Off Your Game!

I was a basketball coach for four years and I had one player who was particularly special. Her name was Jenna and Jenna was a hot head! Basketball was her life, but she allowed the game to become too personal. If she missed a shot, it took her at least 30 seconds to refocus. If she was blocked, that took at least a minute for her to refocus. And if she was fouled? I would literally have to take her out of the game for her to calm down! I cannot tell you how many conferences I had with Jenna! I refused to cut her because Jenna had heart. She had more heart than any player I’d ever met, so there was no way I was cutting Jenna. As I said, basketball was her life! It would have killed her.

Cutting her was out of the question, so I had to come up with something that was going to help her. I remember telling her that the job of the opposing girls was to throw her off her game! So the girl was doing her job and she (Jenna) was allowing her to do it well. I drilled this into Jenna daily. “Your job is to make points… by playing your position, guarding your position, executing your plays and making your shots! That’s YOUR game! Play YOUR game! Her job is to keep you from playing your position, keep you from guarding your position, keep you from executing your plays and stop you from making your shot. That’s her job… to throw you off your game!! It’s not personal. She’s just doing her job!”

So how does my coaching Jenna relate to life? Actually, it’s not hard to make the connection. We all have a position in life. Perhaps you are a parent, or a student, or a minister of some sort. That’s your position, and it’s your job to guard that position with everything you have. The Word says that you should guard your heart at all cost. Your position is the same thing. Guard your parenthood, your education, your ministry at all cost with everything you have. Your job is to be the best parent you can be by making sure your child is taken care of and raised properly. Your job as a student is to the learn the material that’s put before you and make good grades. Your job as a minister is to feed God’s people His Word by whatever means your ministry dictates. That’s your job in a nutshell… no more, no less.

The job of the enemy is to keep you from doing YOUR job. But the enemy uses people, and most of the time, good people. And more of the time, people you know and love. That’s how he works. That’s what he does. That’s who he is. But don’t take it personally, because he’s just doing his job.

Think about this; to use my coach’s analogy again, I never had my girls “go after” any opposing player if they were not good. If an opposing girl does not have game, what would be the point in distracting her? This is the same exact way the enemy coaches his team. If you are not adding any points to God’s team, there would not be a need to “throw you off your game.”

On the contrary, if you are adding points to God’s team, if you are playing the game well, the enemy is not pleased. So now he needs to do whatever necessary to throw you off your game. If you are doing well in parenting. You are a good provider, you teach your children about the Lord, you pray with your children and teach them all they need to know in order to become men and women of God. Satan is not pleased with this, so he will have your precious little prayer warrior misbehave in school. He will have your straight-A student make an F on an important test. He will do anything to throw you off your “parent” game.

Perhaps you have a ministry in your heart. God has given you a vision AND a plan for this vision. He has delivered unto you a burning desire to help people, to encourage those who are down trodden. You’re a natural! People come to you for help and they leave encouraged. They leave you empowered. You know, in your heart, you are scoring points for God’s team. Satan is absolutely mad about this!! Again, he needs to throw you off your “ministry” game. He does so by sending negative thoughts to your spouse. He will by sending nay-sayers in the form of the people closest to you… like your parents, or your siblings. He will do whatever he feels necessary to keep your ministry from succeeding. Anything to throw you off your game.

So now that you are aware of the enemy’s tactics, what do you do? I have to re-visit conversations with Jenna. First of all, Jenna had to realize that, in the game, we all had a job. Each person needed to be efficient and effective at her job; nothing in the game is personal. Do YOUR job better than the opposing girl can do her job. In particular, learn your game, know your skill, and execute your plays so that no one can throw you off your game. Jenna learned her game, knew her skills, and executed her plays almost to perfection. Because of this, the last year Jenna played for me, she earned Most-Improved Player.

We, as parents, as students, as ministers, must do the same. First, we must recognize the players of the game and their jobs. Secondly, we must make certain that OUR skills are perfected. Then, we must, absolutely MUST execute our plans, and lastly, we must remain focused on the goal of scoring points. If we do this, number one, NO ONE will be able to throw us off OUR game. Number two, we will, no doubt, become one of God’s Most-Improved Players.