Coach Dad

So as you may or may not already know I spend a lot of time around sports. I pastor the football team at Pedro Menendez(who won their 7 on 7 game last night) and I coach girls' softball at St. Augustine High School. Well, on my free afternoons during the summer I have been taking Alexa to play softball. Sometimes we pitch, other times we hit, and sometimes we just run and play catch. Whatever it is we are doing I make sure she realizes why we are doing it. And I have to be very careful that she realizes we aren't just doing it to make dad happy(though it seems that way sometimes). We are doing it to get better, the important thing is that she has to want to get better. If my desire for her to be good at it was enough she would be on the Olympic team already at age 8. She has to want to get better deep inside of herself.
The same goes for my coaching, the girls have to want to get better. During the spring we have mandatory practices every day. During the summer we have practices on Mondays and games on Thursdays and they are anything but mandatory. We just allow people to show up when they can, and play when they can. The summer tends to show us just who wants to get better and who needs us to push a little.
These things are exactly the same with God. If we want to grow as Christians we have to want it for ourselves. He did not make us as robots or puppets so the same choice we have for salvation is the amount of choice we have in our SPiritual growth.
1 Peter 2:2 says, "Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation."
There you have it, Peter is telling us we have to want it, and crave it. You need to crave that spiritual growth just like a baby cries out for milk. The same way you feel when you are hungry is the way you should feel toward your spiritual growth. You have to want it, it isn't enough for your Savior to want it for you, or even for your Pastor or Sunday School teacher to want it for you, you have to want it. You should start your day out with hunger, hunger to grow closer to God that day and wanting to do it through reading the BIble and prayer. It's for you, and it's done by you no one can do it for you. So try this mindset, start your day out with a prayer that you will long to grow closer to God and stronger spiritually, then act on it.
Thanks for reading and have a great day.