This year, my son Jack plays basketball on the 7th grade team. I’m having a great time watching them play. They are really good and play well together. They have a good ‘mix’ of size, speed, and talent. So far, the team has won every game and the players are getting better each week. I must admit that as I watch Jack play, I sometimes drift to the early years of my own career.

When I was in 5th grade – my team wasn’t as good. We played one game that year and got beat 50 to 1. Talk about humiliating! We were just crushed. The other team was just bigger, faster, and more organized. They were simply better than we were.

But when we played the same team the next season (when we were in 6th grade) – we scored the first basket. We were actually ahead – in a real game – 2 to 0. We were pumped. We were hugging each other – screaming – we just couldn’t believe it!

That was the only basket we scored that day in a 48 to 2 loss. But hey – we were closer than 50 to 1. We were getting better! We felt pretty good about ourselves and got more confidence!

Whether you play on a team that hasn’t lost a game – or you are on a team that hasn’t won a game – there are plenty of lessons you can learn about life from your experience. I believe you can extract spiritual lessons from any experience in life – but sports are particularly rich in what they have to offer to us. This month at the Esquire – we are going to look at topics like getting too many fouls, acting well from the bench, and listening to the coach. We are going to start things off with “Staying in Bounds,” and see how God’s rules actually prove that He loves us!

My 6th grade team stayed together for many years. We kept getting better and better – and actually won a couple of tournaments when we were in high school. It was hard in the early years to get beat so badly – but we learned from our losses and used them to our advantage.

Are you getting ‘beat up’ right now? Or maybe – you are in a time when things seem to be going your way. There is something you can learn from your experience now to help you in the future. Join us this month at the Esquire as we seek answers for The Game of Life. Wednesdays from 7 to 8 p.m. - it's my favorite hour of the week!