By Brother Fryde Okoh Truth has no substitute” © BRIDE OF CHRIST MINISTRY
WORLD-WIDE
INTRODUCTION
A professional does a job that relates to special education and training. He is an expert and he handles his job with great care, vision and dedication. A coach is a professional trainer and an instructor, one who trains a person or team in sports.
2. Every coach has a vision and direction and that is to win laurels in every competition his team participates. It is left for a coach to scout for the players (in case of football] who will work with him to achieve his aim and aspiration.
3. In most cases, some of these coaches find themselves in a team that cannot boast of quality players but as a professional trainer he believes he can groom them from nothing to something.
4. The first thing in his agenda is to let the players understand his mission and the tactic he wants to use to achieve that… (All the players to drop all their preconceived ideas of football) is for them to follow his instructions judiciously. Some agreed but many couldn’t be fashioned into the new scheme of things and they left. He continued training the remaining of the players with his new ideas which are innovative and spectacular.
5. The green horns having now matured a bit started manifesting negative actions which were rebellious, refusing to obey instructions any more. Many became so proud, full of themselves believing the coach cannot do without them while others with revolting instinct started leaving the club to other clubs where they became obsolete without any new knowledge and playing time.
6. The coach with an undaunted spirit continued grooming new players. As a professional he knew it won’t be easy working with half baked minds. His focus was to succeed in his mission and nothing else. He understood human nature and what it takes to tame the wild.
7. He continued managing the rebellious players in the camp, enduring insults, demanding insistently from them for a positive change but no way; their disobedience to the instructions were expanding and growing on a daily bases. Their arrogance and stubbornness went out of proportion-every player became a coach.
8. Many started imparting different ideology into the players making the words of the coach a none effect. But he knows who he is and where he is going but none can say they know him.
9. Now he has rolled into the stage where he won’t take any more insults laced with envy and jealousy from any of the players again. A time to put the master plan into action. The premier stage has arrived where all his hopes will be realized.
10. The younger team (team B) has grown. To achieve his aim, he decided to make drastic changes, These changes are visionary and not based on sentiments.
11. He now decided to disrobe those players who couldn’t obey his instructions, play by the rules or those whose legs were tired or their brains have hibernated for a while or those who cannot fit into the match plans.
12. To achieve his ultimate ambition, he decided to field younger players who (1) Will play according to his instructions, (2) Who are energetic, vibrant and determined to showcase their individual talents (3) and who know what is at stake and do not want to throw away this opportunity. “He who knows the value of gold should preserve it”.
13. These crops of new players have never had this rear opportunities before to play in a larger stadium internationally and so, they will put in everything strategically, obediently and humbly within their power to make a success of this opportunity.
14. Every determined and focused coach does this and in every stage of growth of a club it is an acceptable norm for a coach to field a winning team. No one instructs a coach who knows his onions on what to do. He has his plan and what to achieve.
15. You may have your vision about the game but he has the master plan of how to execute the game. You might be an experienced player but pride, arrogance and haughtiness may rule you out of the game plan. Pride is one of the greatest obstacle mankind must encounter and to overcome it is another challenge.
16. The spirit that controls pride is at the top and not found at the base. You may be a friend to the coach, you eat, discuss and drink together but over familiarity may instill self ego into your psyche that will produce lack of respect and obedience to the rules, and that may rule you out of the game plan but once you don’t fit into the game plan you won’t be fielded because he has a mission and a vision. This match is crucial to him and what occupies his mind all the time is the trophy mounted at the grand stand-winning it and nothing more.
17. Now that the coach has made his selection for the crucial match, some of us have started murmuring and castigating his selections. We are reacting so because we never knew we would be dropped and more so, we lost our opportunity due to our reckless and foolish ego that engulfed our senseless being.
18. We had problems from the beginning and we know our individual problem. Let’s tell ourselves the truth, we were selfish, arrogant and disobedient to all the instructions the coach marshaled out to us during periods of training.
19. Most of us have declined attending the regular training periods believing we were indispensable, a very useless, horrifying and horrendous situation. Let us answer these pressing questions.
20. Who brought us out from the other club(s) where you were rotting away?
21. ii. Who trained us to this stage where we are now?
22. iii. Who gave us hope and opportunity to show case our individual talents?
23. He that made us what we are today can also dump us and we rot away. This is a fact. Great players have in various times been thrown away out of their team (s) because of their stubbornness and arrogance but when they left to join other clubs they realized the ultimate difference. This led many of them to early retirement; regret and frustration.
24. We are now in a digital age and every coach knows that he must move with the moving time. Our coach is moving with the digital age and not analogue. Look at the new super eagles of Nigeria and the new conquering spirit in them.
25. The new coach has introduced young vibrant players into the team to execute the coming world cup games. Since he took over as the new coach, the team has only lost two matches out of the numerous matches they’ve played which is quite different from our former team that fumbled and wobbled at any game played because of lack of commitment, courage, obedience and focus… a bunch of old horses.
26. Nigeria is one of the few teams coming to the world cup in Russia this year with very young players… giant killers. Why!
27. Because the coach understands the “change” formula which if positively applied can never produce a negative result. If we can understand this, we won’t grudge our coach for he knows what he is doing. His action was to stem the bride from derailing.
SITUATION REPORT
28. It is very clear and certain that the problem (s) of the disrobed officials [ministers) in the bridal faith resulted from their un-repented attitude towards the laid down order and instructions. Our individual performance was below par.
29. Every organization in the world has its rules and regulations and this gathering won’t be an exception. The team was not playing as a winning team, the spirit low and most of them spend their time in things that are irrelevant to the growth of the team.
30. We were more concerned with the mundane things than spiritual, very arrogant, stubborn and disobedient to the instruction of the coach which made our mid-field wobbling, our attack weak and our defense porous.
31. We are in a zombified faith where our coach is the General and Commander-in-Chief and his orders must be obeyed. Can’t we respect his rank? did we promote Him? Do we have road map or the topography of the road?
32. We have a Guide, a Professional Coach and from all His teachings and instructions we could have understood who He is, His Commission and His Mission. He has revealed to us that no other cometh after Him, for He has come to round up all things. We are all involved.
33. We cannot stand to blame anybody for our failures, we are responsible. We have betrayed our Leader and Guide. The greatest betrayal is betrayal of trust, so we have to extend an apology to Him for our failures.
REMEDY
34. The remedy is that all of us (the fallen horses) should get up and support the new team. We have been disrobed and not benched and if we understand the gravity of the situation we should start now asking for Divine help to enable us repent.
35. We should retrace our steps and begin to make amends by changing our mindset. A player that is benched still have an opportunity to be decorated if the team wins the game at the last blast of the whistle because he is sitting on the bench wearing his jersey but he never played a match.
36. All the accolades given to the eleven players that won the match will also be extended to him but a disrobed (sacked, undressed or abandoned) player will not appear in the arena wearing his club’s jersey.
37. We should start now to work ourselves back into the reserve (benched] players status and to achieve this we must try to first of all work ourselves back into the heart of the coach and support the new team honestly.
38. It is better to be a part of supporters club of a team than to be irrelevant. Once we take the positive steps required of us and discard the spirit of leadership struggle we will be spiritually coming back. One who struggles for a position must have a negative intention but one whom leadership position is entrusted upon is humbled and divinely oriented.
39. Even in government political circle, once one is removed as a minister or commissioner more search light is focused on him because there is a great suspicion that the removed officials might start castigating the government in power for removing him or he may start playing antiparty activities and from all search and research if found wanting, the person in question will be sidelined but if one is seen to have felt sorry for his/her errors and still future prominently in the party’s activities regularly and progressively without any rancor and bitterness, he may in future have another opportunity to serve the government in another capacity.
40. So if a coach finds you attending every morning regular training not minding your present predicament, unknowingly to you he may be watching you from a distance.
41. If you continue constituency giving your positive support, there is hope that the love will be rekindled again between you and the coach. The result may turn out positive.
42. I believe that the hand that makes rain can also cause sunshine because both situations have actions and reactions.
43. But the change we all are going to embark on, is it a realistic change with pure heart to backup the new leadership positively or is it an artificial change which are backed up with pretences to make the new leadership fail and we will stand a far and start gossiping, saying “see them! Are we not better than them?” Fault finders.
44. Putting a wedge on the road for our brothers to kick, fall and fail-what have we achieved? Are we working for the progress of the team or what? This would be sheer wickedness. Well God is seeing all our hearts and actions. We should not stir another hornet nest but rather let peace hover around us.
45. One who licks sweet honey never realizes that it comes from a stinging bee until you try to harness it unprofessionally. In any case, I still believe that if God pushes one down, he or she has an opportunity of moving forward if the fellow can get up from where he/she fell but if it is from Satan, the fellow will likely go back to the starting point.
46. Our coach is our leader, director and commander-in-chief and he was the one who disrobed us. We still have hope of advancing further through his enablement.
47. Let’s wipe away all wicked plans from our heart because it must boomerang. A grave digger is always occupied, by the measurement of the corpse to be buried but not his own measurement for his must be measured one day.
48. History has revealed great men whom pride have destroyed people like Timijine (Mongol ruler and conqueror). He was called by his followers as Genghis Khan which means “Lord absolute” but in the end he was absolutely nothing. Goliath, Saddam Hussein, Joseph Stalin, Adolf Hitter and all the rest of the despotic and evil dictators rose to great heights, but eventually all crashed because of pride.
49. The sinking of the Titanic, the British ocean linear which took place on April 15, 1912 was & great disaster.
50. This ship which was regarded as wander of the 21st century was built with high technology, every department was enhanced technologically, but pride contributed to its sinking. Before its prestigious maiden voyage, one of the deck hands was asked- whether the ship was unsinkable and he replied with an arrogant facial expression full of pride that “God himself could not sink the ship”.
51. It became an idle boast that was catastrophically proved within few days of its premier voyage loosing 1,513 lives of the 2,224 passengers on board leaving 711 survivors.
52. James Cameroon was quoted as saying that the ship was not destroyed by iceberg alone; it was also destroyed by the state of mind, unseen forces and arrogance. Pride is the greatest destroyer of one’s relationship with God.
53. Andrew Murray defines pride as “Pride must die in you, or nothing of heaven can live in you” and “pride is a spiritual cancer. It eats up the very possibility of love or contentment, even common sense” says C. S. Lewis.
54. Joseph was a slave before he became a ruler; from poverty to palace he was humble. God must humble us before we can be exalted again. P stops one from hearing the truth even if there is clear evidence. Proverb made us to understand that everyone who is proud in heart is an abomination to the Lord. So let’s throw away that useless virus called pride and become humble achievements.
55. We forget that there are spiritual laws established God and the ways it governs life and what it speaks about pride. If not we may come face to face with a disaster greater than the titanic.
CONCLUSION
56. 1st Peter 5:5- Youths. All of you, cloth yourselves with humility towards one another because “God opposes the proud and shows favor to the humble”
57. James 4:7 (LB) has this to say “But he gives us more and more strength to stand against all such evil longings, As the scripture says, God gives strength to the humble, but sets himself against the proud and haughty. So give yourselves humbly to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you”.
58. Youths don’t ever go the way we went that made us fail but cling to God on daily basis by obeying his instructions.
59. We pray that God will help us out of our folly and forgive us all Amen.
60. You are all blessed.
Bro. Okoh