It’s that time of year again, one of my favorite seasons for sports. Yes, that’s right, wrestling season. I absolutely love wrestling. There is nothing greater than being able to get on a mat, one-on-one with an opponent and use all the skill, technique, strength and endurance that has come from training. Wrestling for six years caused me to learn in depth about the sport and to develop a love for it. Since I have graduated high school, wrestling to compete is no longer part of my life. However, I have learned so many life lessons, and am still using wrestling as an analogy for my life.
As I have kept pushing towards God and seeking his will for my life, I have discovered some pretty awesome things. Something recently, has been using wrestling as an analogy for my life. This, as it continues to develop even as I write, has been such a cool and relevant way to see my life.
I want to start off first by describing wrestling. The season usually starts off by losing weight. The lighter the weight, usually the better chance you have. Next comes the weeks of training; two and a half hours of conditioning and technique a day. The next things are challenges, or practice matches. For someone who has not ever wrestled or is new, simulating a match before actually participating in one is beneficial. It allows a wrestler to see where his strengths and weaknesses are and fine tune them. Finally, there are the matches. This is what ever wrestler trains for, shaking hands with their opponent, wrestling hard for six minutes, and getting their hand raised at the end. However, sometimes in matches a defeat may occur. However, if a wrestler allows that defeat to shape them, they will never win another match. They must review what they did wrong, move on and train for the next match. Same goes with a victory. If a wrestler lives in that victory and doesn’t work on improving, chances are the next match may be a rough one.
How does this all apply to life? Allow me to break it down (bear with me, and hopefully this all makes sense in the end).
First off, in life we all start outlearning. We learn from our parents and teachers. If we grew up in a church we learned from our pastors. Through them we learn technique and skills to life and often after we learn we have a chance to experiment with what we learn. God always seems to bring about opportunity in our lives for us to practice what we have been learning. However, if we fail at these things it isn’t a matter of our salvation, we can simply learn from our mistakes, and “fine tune” our lives. There comes a point though when we are all on our own, for me this has been college, and we have to act out on everything we have been taught and learned through our times of “training.” When we are out in a match, there is no turning back, we have to be fully confident in the actions we are taking. If we happen to mess up a move or forget a technique there is no stopping. We can’t simply just ask to restart and expect everything to just reset. It doesn’t make sense in either end of the analogy. We have to keep going and use whatever the situation presents to better our position. We are always pushing for victory, no wrestler steps on the mat and is thinking, “I want to lose this match.” We put all we have on the mat and in the end we are either victorious or have something to work on. Either way, it’s about looking forward to the next match. We can’t live in that moment of victory or defeat forever. There has to be a time where we decided it’s time to improve. In life, when we are presented with tough situations, we can’t simply just start over every time it gets uncomfortable; we have to keep pushing for that victory, and do everything in our power to gain that victory. If somehow we come out on bottom, we keep our heads up and trust God that he has a lesson for us to learn and something bigger and better in store for our future.
I hope that this maybe is encouraging to someone, I know my thoughts might be scattered, but I wanted to get it down, because this could encourage someone.
Thanks,
--Clayton Hines
As I have kept pushing towards God and seeking his will for my life, I have discovered some pretty awesome things. Something recently, has been using wrestling as an analogy for my life. This, as it continues to develop even as I write, has been such a cool and relevant way to see my life.
I want to start off first by describing wrestling. The season usually starts off by losing weight. The lighter the weight, usually the better chance you have. Next comes the weeks of training; two and a half hours of conditioning and technique a day. The next things are challenges, or practice matches. For someone who has not ever wrestled or is new, simulating a match before actually participating in one is beneficial. It allows a wrestler to see where his strengths and weaknesses are and fine tune them. Finally, there are the matches. This is what ever wrestler trains for, shaking hands with their opponent, wrestling hard for six minutes, and getting their hand raised at the end. However, sometimes in matches a defeat may occur. However, if a wrestler allows that defeat to shape them, they will never win another match. They must review what they did wrong, move on and train for the next match. Same goes with a victory. If a wrestler lives in that victory and doesn’t work on improving, chances are the next match may be a rough one.
How does this all apply to life? Allow me to break it down (bear with me, and hopefully this all makes sense in the end).
First off, in life we all start outlearning. We learn from our parents and teachers. If we grew up in a church we learned from our pastors. Through them we learn technique and skills to life and often after we learn we have a chance to experiment with what we learn. God always seems to bring about opportunity in our lives for us to practice what we have been learning. However, if we fail at these things it isn’t a matter of our salvation, we can simply learn from our mistakes, and “fine tune” our lives. There comes a point though when we are all on our own, for me this has been college, and we have to act out on everything we have been taught and learned through our times of “training.” When we are out in a match, there is no turning back, we have to be fully confident in the actions we are taking. If we happen to mess up a move or forget a technique there is no stopping. We can’t simply just ask to restart and expect everything to just reset. It doesn’t make sense in either end of the analogy. We have to keep going and use whatever the situation presents to better our position. We are always pushing for victory, no wrestler steps on the mat and is thinking, “I want to lose this match.” We put all we have on the mat and in the end we are either victorious or have something to work on. Either way, it’s about looking forward to the next match. We can’t live in that moment of victory or defeat forever. There has to be a time where we decided it’s time to improve. In life, when we are presented with tough situations, we can’t simply just start over every time it gets uncomfortable; we have to keep pushing for that victory, and do everything in our power to gain that victory. If somehow we come out on bottom, we keep our heads up and trust God that he has a lesson for us to learn and something bigger and better in store for our future.
I hope that this maybe is encouraging to someone, I know my thoughts might be scattered, but I wanted to get it down, because this could encourage someone.
Thanks,
--Clayton Hines
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