Recently in my podcast, Danny Noah told me that in a twenty year career, a coach will have personally impacted fifteen thousand people.
It’s hard to imagine.
It’s inspiring.
Think of the impact one coach could make for the Kingdom of God!
Just about every community has coaches: little league, rec soccer, middle school basketball, etc.
It’s so commonplace we don’t even notice it.
Coaches are just normal people helping normal people.
And it got me thinking.
What other opportunities are we not noticing where normal people could make a huge impact?
God’s Kingdom is Audaciously Normal
Coaching is such a perfect illustration of our lives.
We dream of those glorious days when the rag-tag team of little leaguers band together under our direction and win the title.
We can almost smell the warm dust as the sun quietly sets behind the silhouette of a football team running drills before the big game.
But, truth be told, — just like life — coaching can feel downright disappointing: rainy cold days on the field, angry parents, lack of funding, etc.
It can be a thankless job at times.
That’s where a kingdom perspective will bring you back to your purpose.
God’s kingdom is a mosaic of normal quiet moments that slowly lead a soul back to its Father.
Most of the moments that have changed my life were hidden away in normal circumstances with normal people.
Everyday moments of life can stick with us forever.
You may never know how or when your normal faithful life is making an eternal impact.
Bold But Not Instantaneous
Every coach knows that gains are slow and steady.
That’s exactly what discipleship is like too.
Why make a 15,000-person event when you can have one-on-one discipleship with 15,000 over your lifetime?
The impact is unimaginable.
But it’s slow.
And you may never know if there was a return on your investment.
For someone like me, that’s flat-out scary.
Normal Is Bold Enough
If you’ve read my book then you already know how I often feel like I am not enough.
So I will overcompensate by trying to do something big: a big vacation for the girls, a big event, a big altar call.
Big will fix it, right?
Nope.
I’m not saying big is wrong; God uses big, for sure.
What I am saying is that deep inside me I hope that if I do something big enough, I’ll feel worthy.
What I have learned is that the times I was most profoundly impacted have come from the most normal — ones I might even dismiss — parts of life.
For me, it was a handful of broken seashells on a beach.
Can it get more normal than that?!
Feel unnoticed? Like there’s nothing special about your life?
Perfect! You qualify.
Normal is more than enough for the kingdom of God.
Dare to be normal!
