"God made me for a purpose, but he also made me fast and when I run, I feel his pleasure."
Scripture and sport psychology
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Scripture and sport psychology, Derek de la Pena, iUniverse, New York, 2004 ISBN 0-595-32833, 129 Pages
The book's subtitle is "Mental-game techniques for the Christian athlete". The stated twofold aims of the book are "to bring [the reader] closer to Jesus Christ [and] help you with your mental game from a Christian perspective". (Page 1)
It is a series of meditations combining sports psychology with Christian teaching. The material consists of 30 lessons arranged in 5 sections - Building Self-confidence, Purpose/motivation/attitude/goals, dealing with adversity, playing in the zone and teamwork. Each lesson, starts with a Bible verse, looks at a sports situation and leads into an application.
I found this an excellent book with sport and faith well integrated with each other. The following prayer (page 102) illustrates the approach: "Lord Jesus thank you for the opportunity and ability to play sports. Help me to know that you are with me when I play. Help me to work hard in practice and trust myself in competition. Let my thoughts be filled with optimism - let my actions be characteristic of faith".
The book is full of excellent illustrations:
an innovative way to motivate yourself in practice - by putting in a jar the sum of money you think your effort merited! (Page 7).
the suggestion of describing failure and learning from it without criticism that would undermine confidence; (page11)
a basketball player's way of increasing his confidence at the free-throw line; (Page19) serving your team (Page117).
An excellent book. The only negative is that all the illustrations are American