Coach or King

I love living life with a team.  I do better when I have a couple of people weighing in on decisions I need to make--giving thoughtful advice, bringing fresh perspectives.  I have a long history of employing coaches and counselors in addition to the unpaid team of experts I have surrounded myself with.  The Bible encourages this kind of wisdom-seeking.  But it can be a problem when I simply add God to my advisory team.

A good coach.

 Sometimes I think of God as a coach.  He's got a game plan.  He's got experience.  He knows how to bring out the best in me.  

He's on the sidelines and we huddle up during the time outs and sometimes he introduces a play that I don't think is going to work but he believes in me so I try it.  

In this innocuous analogy, God is a coach that doesn't need to yell.  Sure, he's sometimes disappointed in my performance, but he always puts his arm around me after the game and tells me we'll get 'em next time.    

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Yes. No. Renegotiate.

I was an athlete.  I played team sports.  I'm not too pious to understand the coaching analogy.  It's just incomplete.  Or maybe my idea of coaching has shifted now that I'm an adult.  On a sports team, the coach calls the plays, but now, my coach is my employee.  I hire her.  I decide whether or not to go with her ideas.  My current business coach has a phrase she uses when she gives me a suggestion.  I can say 'yes', 'no', or 'renegotiate'.  Which is why personal coaching falls short as an analogy for my relationship with God.

A different picture.

Apparently, Jesus is not interested in having an advisory role in my life. In a culture that bristles at authority, this seems a bit bold.

Recently, after reading in Phillipians and praying, I spent some time just sitting in silence.  During this time I'm not looking for God to say anything to me and I'm not talking to him.  I'm sitting in his presence. Most mornings I don't get any ephiphanies or big 'aha's'.  It's just good to be still and be together.  

This day was different.  Not long into the silence the word 'king' popped into my head.  I felt compelled to tell God that he was my king.  It kept coming.  Stronger and stronger.  I wanted to get down on the floor and bow down, but I feared the dog would be all over me so I decided to keep this sacred moment protected.  

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Taken under advisement...

should not be in my vocabulary when responding to divine instruction.  Sure, sometimes I need to discern whether instruction is from God or not, but honestly, I'd rather obey without question, trusting that God sees my motive, than be found guilty of wavering in my obedience.  If God says "go", I want to go.  If he says "remain", I want to remain.  So obvious and so radical at the same time.  So far to go.

How about you?  What is your response to the idea of Christ as King?  How does that play out practically in your life?