"Watching Film" with God

Posted by: Kathy from Afternoons | Monday, March 3rd, 2025 (12:00am)

All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work. — 2 Timothy 3:16-17

Have you ever heard of “watching film”? From my understanding, it’s when a coach reviews video of his team’s past games and/or games of other teams as a tool to enhance team performance. Makes sense, right? And of course, after review, the coach brings in the team to watch together. It offers an opportunity to see highlights and celebrate a job well done, but it also provides the coach space to point out mistakes that can be avoided in the future. Basically, every part of it is for the benefit of the team as a whole. Great coaches who want their team to be successful take the time to encourage, but also to teach, to correct, and even to discipline their team.

So, let’s look at God as THE perfect coach of our lives. According to 2 Timothy 3:16-17, His Word is like the playbook, or maybe the “film” to review. God put many “assistant coaches” in charge of writing down the words of the Bible, but all of the instructions and examples came straight from the “head coach”. Every word, every character, every story is valuable to the enhancement of the team (aka: humanity).

He reveals to us characters with massive flaws. Guys who did the opposite of what God said to do and the results that ensued (um, ya know, becoming fish food for three days, stuff like that...). I imagine God in the locker room with his team saying, “See what happens when you decide to make the calls?! Look at Jonah…don’t do that!” Let’s face it, there are A LOT of examples in the Bible of flawed mankind. Is Coach pointing out these guys just to make us feel better about ourselves? (“At least we’re not THAT bad!”) Actually, He points this out to show us just how similar we are; prone to wander and do our own thing, prone to make errors when we refuse to adhere to what Coach told us to do. He would rather us learn from others’ mistakes and save us a whole lot of unnecessary turmoil. That’s just good training.

Communicating the expectations to the team is also pretty important to team success too. Coach shows his athletes the “do’s and don’ts” of being a member of the team. In review, when He sees behavior that does not match the written expectations, there will be discipline and correction. A really good coach follows through, not to be a tyrant, but to remind the team He will do what He said he is gonna do for the benefit of the athlete as well as the team as a whole. They can expect Him to follow through because He is trustworthy. God’s Word lays out the expectations for our lives, and as we watch the tape with our coach (ask God for honest feedback), correction and discipline may be the result.

Throughout the pages of Scripture, we see great examples of faithfulness too; regular people, just like us, that we can aspire to be like. People who were faithful in the middle of pain (Job), and who had contrite hearts when they messed up (David), and one who was willing to endure unthinkable suffering for our sake; literally taking one for “the team” (Jesus). He shows us what our “game” should look like, not to shame us by what we are not (yet), but to encourage us to see our full potential in who He created us to be.

Trust your coach. Learn His playbook. Know that every part of it has a purpose for the greater good of the team. A team that IS victorious in the end. A team whose mission cannot be stopped. I don’t know about you, but I want to be on THAT team.