Youth Sports
The season is done. No more games, no more practices. You made it.
So now what?
Some athletes — the ones who get really good — don’t just stop when the season ends. They stay sharp in the off-season. Not because someone is making them. Because they want to be better when the next season starts.
Read this passage slowly.
The plans of the diligent lead to profit as surely as haste leads to poverty.
Proverbs 21:5 — NIVLet that sit for a second before you move.
The diligent person plans ahead and it pays off. In sports, the off-season is when the planning happens. The player who works a little on their skills over the summer and fall — who doesn’t just wait for next season to get better — shows up to the first practice already ahead of where they were at the end of the last one.
Staying sharp doesn’t mean training like a professional athlete on your summer break. It just means you don’t completely forget your sport for six months. Shoot around a few times a week. Kick the ball in the backyard. Go for a run. Keep your body moving and your skills a little bit alive.
The off-season is also a good time to work on the things that are hardest for you — the skill you never quite got, the thing your coach mentioned you should practice. When nobody is watching and there’s no pressure from games, you can actually focus on the hard stuff.
The off-season is when you work on the hard stuff. No pressure, no games, just growth.
What is one thing you want to get better at before next season? What would it take to actually work on it?
The specific skill named becomes the off-season goal. Help kids make it realistic and concrete.
Stay a little sharp. Show up next season better than you left.
Off-season gatherings are usually optional. Frame this devotional accordingly — the kids who chose to show up are already demonstrating the attitude the devotional is about.