There’s a special kind of excitement in the air when football season rolls around, especially for Gator fans this year. A new coach brings fresh energy, new expectations, new plays, and maybe even a little renewed hope that this could be the year!
Fans are watching closely. What kind of offense will he run? What changes will he make? Can he motivate the players? Can he get everyone moving in the same direction?
Because every football fan knows something important: The coach matters.
A great coach does more than stand on the sideline on Saturday. He prepares his players long before game day. He teaches them. Corrects them. Encourages them. Pushes them when they want to quit. He sees things they can’t always see from the field.
And perhaps most importantly, the players have to trust the coach enough to follow his direction.
That raises a good question for us: Who is coaching your life?
We have plenty of voices calling plays for us. Culture tells us what success should look like. Social media tells us what we should want. Other people have opinions about what we should do. And sometimes the loudest voice in the huddle is our own.
But Scripture gives us a different Coach.
Proverbs 3:5–6 tells us: “Trust in the Lord with all your heart; and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct your paths.”
God sees the whole field. He knows what’s ahead when we don’t. He knows when we need to move forward and when we need to wait. Sometimes He calls a play we don’t understand. Sometimes He redirects us when we were certain we knew where we were going.
Our job is to trust Him enough to follow. Imagine a quarterback walking into the huddle and saying, “Coach sent in the play…but I’ve got a better idea.”
Gator fans probably wouldn’t be too thrilled! Yet how often do we do exactly that with God? We pray for His direction, and then do what we wanted to do anyway. We read His Word, but decide His instructions don’t quite fit our situation. We ask Him to lead, and then try to take over the play-calling.
As football season begins, Gator fans are putting a lot of hope in a new coach. We’ll cheer. We’ll second-guess a few calls. We’ll celebrate the victories and probably groan over a few plays that don’t go quite as planned. But there’s a bigger question worth carrying with us this season:
Who is calling the plays in my life?
God doesn’t promise that every play will be easy. He doesn’t promise we’ll understand every call. He simply asks us to trust Him.
So, while we’re cheering for the Gators and watching what a new coach can do with a football team, perhaps it can remind us to look at our own lives and ask:
Am I listening to my Coach? Do I trust His playbook? And when He calls the play, am I willing to run it?
Because when God is calling the plays, we can trust the One who already knows how the game ends.