Trouble often seems to be waiting around every corner of daily life, especially for coaches. Whether it is a troubled player, an unfair referee, a nagging parent or an unreasonable principal, coaches can count on difficulties. They come with the territory!

Thankfully, Jesus never pretended that life would be a luxury cruise. “You will have trouble,” He told His disciples. In fact, difficulties are guaranteed, an inevitable part of living in a fallen world. Jesus didn’t deliver the trouble; He just knew it was coming.

Duke Preston can still hear it now.

“Duke!”

His father’s deep, booming voice echoed throughout the cavernous racquetball court. Just moments earlier, assistant coach Raymond Preston had addressed his son’s freshman football team about a party that had taken place the weekend before. The unsupervised event resulted in a substantial amount of underage drinking—including participation by the younger Preston.

And with his father’s firm, beckoning call, Preston knew he was busted.

In the 1980s, the San Francisco 49ers made popular what became known as the West Coast Offense, an offense characterized by short, controlled-pass plays that gained only five to six yards. By running such low-risk plays, San Francisco nibbled away at their opponents. Even strong defensive opponents who never gave up “big plays” were humbled by the 49ers’ consistent gains. San Francisco’s strategy earned them five Super Bowl titles between 1982 and 1995.

I once overheard of a group of coaches discussing what they were going to do with a certain player who had problems following the team rules. He’d had plenty of issues, but the final straw came when they found out he was caught up in drugs. Some of the coaches wanted to kick the young man off the team, but the head coach did not. He justified keeping the young man on the team by telling this story…

Depending on the golf course, the average PGA golfer will take roughly 280 shots during a four-round tournament. Within each one of those swings there is an enormous amount of pressure. For some players, one shot could make the difference between picking up a weekend paycheck and making an early exit—the difference between retaining a tour card and going back to qualifying school.

Aaron Baddeley fully understands all of the ramifications that accompany golf’s micromanaged scoring system. He has missed the cut by one stroke and made the cut by the same paper-thin margin. Baddeley never takes his position on the PGA for granted but somehow finds relief from the inherent stress with a special technique.

Tampa Bay Rays All-Star Ben Zobrist wasn’t drafted by Major League Baseball out of high school. In fact, he wasn’t even offered a baseball scholarship to play in college. Yet, after attending a skills showcase the summer after his senior year, one college coach saw potential in Zobrist and offered him a position on the team.

Now one of the brightest young infielders in the game, Zobrist has experienced a divine path to success—both on the field and off. Just before the start of the 2010 season, Zobrist sat down with FCA’s Sharing the Victory magazine to talk about that career, his family and, most importantly, his faith in Jesus Christ.

Trouble and being troubled are two completely different things. Trouble is being down by a run, nobody on base, with two outs in the bottom of the ninth and our worst hitter coming to the plate. Being troubled is having no strategy for this scenario and not being prepared to accept the possible consequences that are about to come.

As coaches, there will be many times when we will have to declare to our team, “Don’t worry, everything will be okay.” We might even complete our short speech with the same words that Jesus did: “Believe in me.” But if we haven’t demonstrated believability to our players, these words will have absolutely no value. Without having the same credibility that Jesus had, our words will be like wisps of air.

Most of us, at some time, have found ourselves at “the end or our rope” or at the end of our own strength emotionally. Maybe we were so tired at practice that we were disrespectful to a coach, a trainer, or teammate. Most of us have been let down by someone whom we look up to because they were at the end of their rope emotionally. Maybe a friend lied, or our parents left, or our coach blew up and disrespected us.