A Word Of Connection

Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others. - Philippians 2:4

Last week, my dad called me and asked if I would be willing to come help with tryouts for one of the boys’ basketball teams at the school he works at. I eagerly said yes, considering I’ll take any chance to be in the gym during basketball season. Once I got there, my dad and I were asked to help evaluate the boys trying out. So we walked around with clipboards, taking notes as we watched the athletes show off their skills. 

While we were observing, there was this one particular player that caught my attention. We’ll call him Cody*. Cody reminded me a lot of my little brother Brett. He wasn’t the biggest guy on the floor by any sense. In fact, he was somewhat undersized. But what he lacked in height, he made up for in confidence. He could shoot the ball well. He dribbled with ease, and he was scrappy on defense. Needless to say, it was fun to watch him play. 

After tryouts ended, I was catching my mom up on what happened and which players stood out the most. As I told her about Cody, she realized that he was a student in one of her classes. The funny thing was, she was pretty surprised that he had the kind of swag and confidence on the court that I described, because apparently in her class, he was very quiet and reserved. But now that she knew he played basketball, my mom decided she was going to try to bring up this common interest in class to see if she could get him to open up.

Sure enough, the next school day, my mom finds Cody in her class and says, “So I hear you’re a baller, huh?” Cody smiled and nodded. It wasn’t a long conversation by any means. But my mom later told me that as class progressed that day, Cody was more engaged and participated more in class than he had all year. 

I love hearing stories like this one because they remind me what a difference it makes when we make an effort to connect with others. Unfortunately, our default setting as human beings is to focus on ourselves. We think about ourselves. We talk about ourselves. We redirect conversations so they’re about us. We’re such a self-focused bunch of people. But that’s not what we’re called or commanded to be according to Scripture. Instead, we’re supposed to be selfless like Jesus was. As Paul states in the book of Philippians, we are supposed to focus on the interests of others, not just our own. 

That’s the mentality my mom had when she talked to Cody about basketball. It wasn’t a difficult move she had to make. All she did was make a connection by asking him about something he was passionate about and interested in; and the positive repercussions of that one connection began to show up in his academics almost instantly. 

So I want to leave you with this one request. Find someone this week, maybe someone you normally don’t engage with a lot or someone who seems to keep to themselves, and reach out to them. Ask them about something their interested in. Talk to them about something they’re skilled at or knowledgable about. You never know what kind of impact that one simple connection can make. 

*Name was changed to respect the privacy of the student athlete.