Enter your search terms Submit search form
	Web CincySportsWorld.com

   Giving It Your All

Proverbs 10:4 He becometh poor that dealeth with a slack hand: but the hand of the diligent maketh rich.

The basis of our articles is to use a particular character trait to draw an important connection between what God teaches in the Bible, and the benefit to developing athletic prowess. Simply put if you can grab a hold to what God says, you will become a “beast” in the sports realm. God wants you to be a better person and the understanding of his purpose will translate into being better at sports. What may be the key to the light is the contrast of slothfulness and diligence. If you are not quite sure of the meaning of slothfulness, it is very elementary. Slothfulness is the biblical equivalent to lazy. They are one in the same. So if you ever see the term slothful or chose to use the word, it is never a compliment. Some in our society have tried to make laziness a way of life. They will give a younger person the idea that it can be comical and even admirable in certain situations. Every reference to laziness in the Bible labels it as a sin. The pending results of this sin are terms like wasteful, failure, apathetic (don’t care), irresponsible and poor in both spirit and substance. The old school saying that needs to be analyzed is, “Don’t work harder, work smarter”. Working smarter is excellent advice if and only if, you don’t take it as an excuse to decrease the diligent nature that is prescribed by God. Working harder may not always be the answer if wisdom is not an ingredient to the hard work. But with all things being equal the diligent, hardworking individual will see the greatest increase. Diligence requires the endurance to complete all task assigned to me. Not to complete it to my satisfaction, but to the satisfaction of the person or persons that are responsible for giving me the task. Earnest work plus understanding will equal benefit, if I invest my time and energy persistently. Check this out people-----diligence will make you rich!! Not only in spirit and character, which should be sufficient, but God means in substance also. Let’s take a look at some situations of slothfulness vs. diligence in the sports arena.

Throughout the years I have labeled a category of athletes as “cruisers”. They cruise through conditioning drills or scrimmages. The cruiser appears to perpetually pace themselves. They truly have been lead to believe that cruising is not only “cool” but acceptable on some level. Sometimes the cruiser is very talented and a previous coach has allowed this lack of diligence. There are certainly some players who have the ability to cruise in practice and play the game at a high level. There are a multitude of problems that result from giving the impression to an athlete that cruising is okay. One problem is that if the player continues to pursue the next level he or she will certainly meet their match. As stated earlier, if all things are equal the diligent worker will always produce more fruit. Please don’t misunderstand and think that the implication is that all cruisers are lazy---they are not. The second problem will always arise when the truly slothful individual sees the practice habits of the cruiser. This is quickly translated to mean that pacing myself is cool. Working hard is for the ones who don’t have talent and my vast talent will replace a diligent work ethic. Lazy people waste precious time and are always irresponsible. They will never sustain success because they believe that they are wise in their choice to do less. Success is definitely a choice and slothfulness is a choice as well. The reality is that they cannot exist together. There are several references in the Book of Proverbs to show that a willingness to work hard and to do your best at a given task is an admirable choice in wise living. The promise from God to make you rich is just a by product of the essence of diligence. Successful people in general and athletes in particular at some point understand the concept of diligence, endurance and persistence. There may be different ways to gain a competitive edge, but one way that will always work is wisdom mixed with hard work. You should learn from the scriptures that a lack of diligence is not funny, cool or acceptable in God’s eyes. Slothfulness is consistently portrayed as a road to poverty and the diligent will become prosperous

                                                                                      Fred Tudor

Fred Tudor is a eighteen year employee of the Cincinnati Public Schools as a Health and Physical Education teacher. He has been coaching at the high school level in Greater Cincinnati since graduating from Wittenberg University in 1979. His coaching stints includes stops at his alma mater Walnut Hills High School, Hughes Center High School, and from 1990 until present coaches at Wyoming High School. His church home is Cincinnati Bibleway Church in Madisonville, Apostles James and Grace Blue Pastors.

Contact Information: 513.363.7675 E-Mail: Info@CincySportsWorld.com