What crown are you training for?

1 Corinthians 9:25
Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last, but we do it to get a crown that will last forever.


When we compete to win a trophy, we train as hard as we can to try and achieve that goal. This verse was our team verse my senior year of basketball. Whenever we had a pep rally we would tell everyone, what our team verse was. We wanted to make sure that people knew, yes we wanted to win, and have been training hard to win, but we also wanted them to know that our main focus was to go out there on the court and be a witness to whoever we played against. To the team, and to the crowd. Dave Stubbs would lead us in Spiritual training every wednesday, we would talk about attitude, perseverance, and team unity. If we came out and acted like a team, supported each other, and had good attitudes, we would be accomplishing many more things than just winning a game. We would be witnessing to other teams and fans, and we would be pleasing our Lord. We did just that throughout the entire season. We had our rough patches in practice and off the court, but when we were on that court we acted like a team should, and played together, and encouraged each other. We were doing our job as disciples of Christ, and helping witness to others. 


We decided as a team very early on that we wanted to be witnesses on the court, that was the path we chose. The place it took us to was the state tournament with an unbeaten record, where we could be witnesses to an even larger crowd.


Paths lead to places.