Day Two of UTC

Day two!!! So we went over two principles today. The first one is called "Audience of One" and the second one is called "Inside Game"

Audience of One:

We read 1 Kings 18:1-40 which is about the Israelite people worshiping both God and an idol called Baal. 

Audience of One means worshiping God through your sport (or career, relationship, etc..) and playing for God and only God. Audience of One talks about identifying your idols and repenting, or turning away from them. God should be the only one you worship. We tend to worship so many different types of things, whether it is relationships, money, your career, sport, or self. But each of these things will never satisfy you and will always end up letting you down. Only God accepts you for who you are and will never be disappointed in you. Therefore, I am to play basketball for my Audience of One--my Lord and God--to glorify him and use the gifts he has given me.

Inside Game:

We read Luke 15:11-32 which is about the Lost Son. If you haven't read this before it's a must. It's a beautiful story that shows that the Lord loves us no matter what we do.

Inside game is about what motivates me? It should be God's love for me as the maximum motivation. 

Something we talked about was Grace Motivation which is your identity in Christ. To allow what God says is true about you to motivate you. There are many different types of things that motivate us like: recognition, revenge, success, winning, money, parents, etc... Although these are great short term motivational goals, they will never satisfy you. 

I also learned that my self worth is not determined by my performance and others opinion of me. But my self worth is dependent on what God declares true about me.

Finally, after learning about the principles we went to the volleyball fields to practice them and I learned how to use God as my motivation through "Thanks-You Responses". For example, I would thank God for his love and grace before each serve. By doing so I would put all my energy and strength into it. It was interesting. I think this tool will be helpful for me to keep God at the center of my sport. I tend to struggle using him as motivation in basketball since it is such a fast pace sport and so many things are going on, but if I can think of one thing and focus on it throughout the game and repeat thanks to God, I will glorify him and perform better because I will not be in my head and thinking negative things.

That was the main points for day two, tomorrow we talk about pain and suffering which I am looking forward to. Stay in tune! :0)