"What are you doing?" Martin asked.
"Meditating," he answered.
"Meditating on what?"
"On The Word. Been doing it every day since The Day," Coach said.
"What's The Day?" Martin asked. "You gotta tell me."
"I'll tell you soon, Martin. Just not time yet. But you'll know soon enough."
"So what's with the meditating?" Martin asked.
"Well, ever since The Day I realized how important it is to start your day off right. Instead of letting the world create you, you create your world. Instead of starting your morning by turning on the news, I say consider taking a walk of prayer. Instead of looking down at the paper, look up to the heavens. And instead of listening to all those sports commentators say how great or bad you are, simply walk outside, close your eyes, smell the fresh air, take a few deep breaths, and discover the real peace you seek. I always told my girls that each day, stay positive, do your best to succeed and have faith in a brighter and better future. I believe this is the antidote to fear and what we truly need to succeed in this world."
Martin was glad that coach brought up the issue of fear, because it was exactly what he came to talk to him about. "Yeah, about that," Martin said. "About the fear you said I needed to know and overcome. I read the part in the playbook about seizing the moment, and it hit me what my fear is. You want to know what it is."
"Of course I do," said Coach. He was both surprised and thrilled that Martin wanted to talk about it. He had almost given up on it as a lost cause, but just when you give up hope God and people will always surprise you, he thought to himself. "What do you got for me?"
"Well, Coach," Martin said. "I realized that I fear failure. I'm scared of not making the team. I'm fearful of what this will mean in terms of my future and my mother's future."
"This is big, Martin," Coach said with an enthusiastic smile Martin hadn't seen before. "This is really big." He had been waiting for this moment ever since their first conversation. "We're excavating now," he added. "Each fear reveals a deeper fear. Your fear about your mom's health brought up your fear of failure, and this fear leads to your fear of not being enough, which reveals your ultimate fear of not being loved. So many people have this fear, Martin. Especially great performers. They get so tied into their accomplishments and success they wonder if anyone will love them for who they are rather than what they do. But what they and you need to know is that you are loved by God, and this is the ultimate answer to your ultimate fear. Do you know how I know this?"
"How?" asked Martin, who was still uncomfortable talking about his fears. The conversation had already gone on longer than he had hoped.
"Because love casts out all fear. If you're a mom, you wouldn't walk across a busy highway for fear of getting hit by a car. But if your child ran into the street you would run after her. Because love casts out all fear. Love is more powerful than fear."
"But how come I don't feel God's love? Why isn't it casting out my fear?" Martin asked.
"Because you haven't opened the door to your heart. God's knocking, but you're not letting Him in. The fact is, if you knew who walked alongside you, with all the love in the universe, and you knew who carried you through all the challenging times in your life to where you are right now, you wouldn't know fear. You wouldn't be afraid. You would accept and receive this love, and it would cast out your fears—big and small."
"But I am afraid," Martin admitted.
"That's because pride keeps you separate from the love of God. Pride causes the ripple of fear in your life, and all your fears big and small can be traced back to it. Instead of trying to be one with God, pride says 'I can be my own God. I can do it alone.' This often makes you work really hard as you seek to gain love through your accomplishments and success but ultimately causes you to crash and burn when you realize that all the material success and accolades in the world are not enough to fill the void. They are not enough to eliminate the anxiety you feel. They're not enough to keep you from seeking something more. That's because you were not created to be separate from the love of God. You were made to be one with it. But know this: God doesn't keep us separate from this love. Pride does.
"And so you keep working, keep striving, and keep pushing. You keep working toward getting the love you seek, and the harder you work, the more elusive it becomes. It's ironic how pride often pushes you to be the best but also keeps you from it. That's because it pushes you toward God's love and away from it at the same time. You know you were created for more, but you don't know how to get it. You're broken, so you seek wholeness, but your pride keeps you from the ultimate healing. Then you hit your breaking point. Then you realize that you can't do it alone. Then you join the ranks of all the people, including the best of the best, who have come to a point in their lives when they realize they can't do it by themselves.
"Honestly, I think that's why we strive, Martin. It's the ultimate quest. We strive because God knows that in the striving we will push ourselves to the point where we come to the reality that we need something more—that our will isn't big enough—that our strength isn't strong enough. It is then that we seek God with our whole heart. It is at this breaking point when we realize that we must tap into a power greater than ourselves. This allows us to become more than what we want to be. It inspires us and moves us to become everything God intends for us to be. The quest for greatness then becomes a joy rather than a burden. And this is the ninth trait of the Best of the Best."
"That's because it's not politically correct to talk about it. We celebrate all the famous people who created positive change in the world because of their faith, and then we're not supposed to talk about the faith that greatness requires. The fact is, you can't talk about greatness without talking about God. It would be like talking about breathing without mentioning the importance of air. We were created to do great things. It's all part of the plan. In fact, if you asked the people throughout history who changed the world, they would all tell you that they tapped into the greatest and ultimate power. They would tell you that it was their faith that carried them through the adversities, the pain, and the suffering. They would tell you that they got a sense of the divine on their march to greatness. They would tell you that they became a conductor instead of a resistor."
"What's a conductor and a resistor?" asked Martin.
"According to one of my favorite writers, John Ortberg, it has to do with the world of atoms and electrons. He says that resistors hold on and conductors let go. A resistor doesn't want to let go of its electrons. It's stingy. It holds on to them, and in doing so the resistor has little or no electrical current moving through it and thus has limited power. The conductor, by contrast, is willing to let go of its electrons. In doing so it doesn't generate its own power; it is simply a conduit. However, it generates an enormous amount of power from the current that flows through it. The greater the current, the greater the power that will be radiated by the conductor.
"In spiritual terms we can say that resistors rely on their own power so their power is limited. Their pride keeps them separate from the ultimate power source. Conductors, by contrast, empty themselves of their pride and allow the ultimate power to flow through them. They become a conduit and a vessel for the greatest power source in the world. And so the measure of someone's power can be determined by how much they are willing to let go and how great a vessel they allow themselves to become."
"So how do I do this?" Martin asked. "How do I become a conductor?"
"You let go. You surrender. You give the all your pain and fear and anxiety and all your junk to God and you say 'I can't do it alone. I need you.' You stop being a resistor and stop trying to do it all yourself. You allow the power behind all of creation to move through you.
"But it's so hard to let go," Martin said as tears started to well up in his eyes.
"I know," said Coach Ken. "It's the hardest thing in the world to do. We are so use to being in control that we're afraid of what might happen if we take our hands off of the steering wheel and let God drive our life. We think we'll fall apart, but it's really the beginning of our life coming together. Jeff Gordon, the racecar driver, once told me that every time he tried to direct his own life, it fell apart. But when he let God drive the way, it all worked out. And if a racecar driver can say that, then so can you. So, are you ready to surrender it all? It's time to give up being a resistor. Say it with me. 'I can't do it alone. I need you, God.'"
Martin tried, but he couldn't do it. He was too uncomfortable and embarrassed to let go and too comfortable with his junk.
Coach Ken repeated, "'I can't do it alone. I need you.' Say it, Martin."
Martin grimaced and squirmed as he sat in a chair and put his face in his hands. "No," Martin yelled. "I can't do it."
Coach Ken grabbed Martin's hand and clutched it in his two giant hands. He knew this was pride making its last stand. He repeated, this time in a whisper. "Say it, Martin. 'I can't do it alone. I need you.'"
This time Martin said it, barely, under his breath, as he clenched Coach Ken's hand and fell to the floor on his knees. "Say it, Martin, 'I am not in control, God. You are in control. And I trust in your plan for my life.'"
Martin resisted all he could, but then all at once the tears started flowing and he sobbed and sobbed and sobbed as he let go of Coach's hand and punched the air a few times. He fell to the floor and with him he brought all his memories and all his pain and all his fear. When everything fell apart around him, he was the one who had to keep it together. When his father died, everyone turned to him. When his mother got sick, everyone turned to him. When something went wrong in the family, they turned to him. Everyone turned to him, and now after years of turning to himself and his mother, Martin finally turned to God.
He banged the floor and clenched his fist and said, "Okay, I give it all to you. I surrender." Again, he clenched his fist and repeated, "I surrender." Raising his voice, he repeated, "I can't do it alone. I need you. Please save me." And then something happened. Then he stopped banging the floor. Then he closed his eyes, thought of his wonderful mother and said a silent prayer. The one he said each night as a young boy—when he saw God as a relationship rather than a religion. And in this moment he felt this amazing feeling. Goosebumps covered his body and he felt a kind of grace and peace like he had never known. He felt like the weight of the world had been lifted from his body. Like Atlas had taken the world off his shoulders. He rose from the floor, and Coach Ken gave him a hug. A man hug. The kind of hug that men of faith weren't afraid to give each other. And then Coach Ken grabbed Martin's hands in his and looked in his eyes and said, "Don't forget this moment. You're not a resistor anymore. You're a conductor now."
"I won't," Martin said. How could he forget? How could he forget the small voice inside him that spoke loud and clear, Let go. I am with you. Have faith in Me. How could he forget the greatest feeling he had ever known?
It was a voice and a feeling that Coach Ken had seen change countless lives. It was a voice and a feeling that lead people from desperation to surrender to greatness. It had been a while since he had seen someone resist with such pride. Most of the people he had worked with didn't have such a dramatic transformation. But he also knew that some of the biggest resistors became some of the biggest conductors if they allowed themselves to become a vessel. He hoped this would be the case with Martin.