On the Path
Helping athletes keep a Christ centered life. Weekly episodes with athletes and coaches that are succeeding in their sport while remembering what is most important and keeping Jesus Christ at the center of their lives.
On the Path
Involve Your “Teammates”
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Caden Bloxham from the lacrosse team talks to us about the importance of gathering and being one with your teammates and friends. Invite others to come and hear the message of Jesus Christ. We are stronger together and have a greater chance of success.
Welcome back everyone to On the Path. I'm Ben Dabel, and today I'm here with another special guest. Today I'm here with Caden Bloxham. I'll say a little bit about him to get going. Caden is from South Carolina and he's currently on the lacrosse team here at Southern Virginia University and he's a senior studying business. Welcome, Caden. We're happy to have you out here. Thanks for having me. Today we're going to start with our get to know you question that we kind of ask everyone. And the question is, what um, if you had to choose a song to describe you and why, what song would it be?
SPEAKER_01Um, well, if I had to pick, I I don't think I am, but I like to consider myself a southern boy. Um I like to think I'm from the country, but I'm really not. But so I'd have to pick a country song, and so the first thing that came to my mind was By Your Grace by Cody Johnson. Okay. Um, I mean it's a it's a Christian song. It talks about like how um we are nothing without God, we're nothing without his grace. Um, and so I think that's that plays an important part in my life, just knowing that um without God that I'm nothing. And so, yeah.
SPEAKER_00That's awesome. I love that. I'll have to give that song a good listen to after this. Um, so let's talk a little bit about lacrosse to begin with. Me personally, I don't know much about lacrosse. I don't know how everything works. I've never really watched much lacrosse unless there's a highlight on ESPN. So kind of tell us a little bit about lacrosse.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I mean, I I don't really know much about lacrosse either, to be honest with you. Like I've only been playing a couple years, but um I mean they like to say that it's the fastest sport on grass, right? It's it's like if you take hockey and soccer and mix it, um, and then a bunch of guys that like to run around and hit each other and whack each other with sticks. Um, so I mean it's really fast. It's it's I mean, the ball moves fast, people run fast, you shoot fast. Um so it's just very fast sport, very physical sport, and it's a ton of fun.
SPEAKER_00That's awesome. What is your favorite aspect of lacrosse? What what gives you the drive to go back to the field every single day and play?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I mean, um lacrosse is just it's an all-around just amazing sport. Um, just um and the big part for me, the big part for um our team especially is just the boys on the team. Um a lot of the guys, they I mean it's it's a very it's a very challenging sport, it's hard on your body, and um it's not easy to be very good at it. Um and so a big driving factor, especially on the hard days, um, is just the boys on the team going out working for your friends, working for your roommates. Um yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I love I love how you say that because we really do see, I think I've talked about this a lot with some other people, but we really see the team aspect, the pe the people we're surrounded with, we don't even have to call them teammates, we can call them friends, right? If we don't have those people on the team to go back to every single day, it's gonna make it a lot more difficult to keep playing, right? Yeah, that kind of like when we're young and we're playing different sports, if we don't have a friend on the team, we're talking to mom and dad, we're like, hey, yeah, I don't want to go to practice today, I don't really want to do this. But when you have that person that you can go back to and talk to and mess around with at practice, it makes it a lot more fun, right? Yeah. So I love that you said that. Um now talking about your life in lacrosse, how did you get into lacrosse? How did that become your sport?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I mean, it's it's kind of an interesting thing. Like I never um I never played lacrosse growing up, like my high school didn't have a lacrosse team. Um, I originally came to Southern Virginia to play football. Okay. Um, and then after my my second year of football, I was just I was looking for something else to do just to keep myself busy. And um I had a roommate at the time who was on the lacrosse team, and he just told me to come out and try out for the team, and so um I went out, tried out, and um yeah, it's been it's been a great time. It's been super fun. But I've only I mean I've only played two seasons. This is my third season ever playing, and so I'm still learning the ropes, I'm still learning how to play lacrosse. Um, but yeah.
SPEAKER_00That's awesome, that's super fun. What what do you think your roommate, you said, right? He's the one that kind of got you into it. How did how did he convince you to play lacrosse? Because I think of lacrosse and yes, it looks fun, but I don't think I'd be good at it at all. And it just it's something that'd be I wouldn't find thrilling every single day to play, because I feel like I'd just get hurt too.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. So what how did he convince you to play lacrosse? Yeah, I mean it was kind of interesting because he was kind of in the same boat, like he he also had never played lacrosse, and he he tried out in the fall while I was playing football, um, and then me and him got to be like really good friends, and he just kind of knew that I was not necessarily struggling, but just kind of looking for something else at this school and um trying to find like more friends to have, whatever, and a group of guys to join. And he knew that the lacrosse team was a good group of guys, and um he thought I'd enjoy it, and so he just he told me to come out and try out, go talk to the coaches, whatever, just um yeah, just to give it a try, and it worked out.
SPEAKER_00So that's super awesome. Yeah, it's that's that's kind of fun. It's like it's one of those detours that you never knew was gonna come, right? Yeah, um, so talking, let's let's go back, talk a little bit earlier about your life in sports. When you were younger, I don't know what sports, what sports were you involved in when you were younger? Mainly just football. Okay. So playing football growing up, what what was something you loved about it? Why why football?
SPEAKER_01Um, I mean, football in the South, it's kind of like if you want to be like a cool guy, if you want to be like a good dude, it was kind of weird to think about it, but looking back at it now, it's that's exactly why I wanted to play football, right? It was just I wanted to be known. I wanted to be, I wanted to have a lot of friends. I wanted to, I mean, obviously I wanted to go on and play college football. I wanted to be a professional football player. Um, but football, just in team sports in general, it I think it just teaches you so much about being a a good human being, being a good man, um, being a good person in society, right? Working with people that you would not not normally work with, um, going through trials with other people, um, learning how to grow yourself while growing the team. Um, that's one of my favorite things about football. And I I played defense, and in in my high school, we took very big pride in our defense. Um, and defense in football is a very interesting thing. You don't really you don't really think how much goes into playing football. Um But on defense, every single play, there's 11 jobs that have to be done, and 11 jobs that have to be filled, and every single play your job switches. It it's different every single time. Um and so if one person messes up out of your 11, that's how you get broken plays, that's how you get touchdowns. Um and so as a defense, you really learn how you have to do your own part in order for the defense to succeed. Um, the defense can only succeed if all 11 guys do their job correctly every single play.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that's awesome. We kind of we hear the phrase a lot growing up playing sports is defense wins championships, right? And that's something that's huge. Defense is something that's super important, and it's like you said, in football, there's 11 jobs. How would you define the difference or describe the difference between defense and football and defense in lacrosse?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I mean, it's it's really interesting. Um in foot, I mean, they're they're very similar in ways. Um lacrosse, just like football, there's different defenses. Um our defense, I mean, in lacrosse, there's six offensive players and six defensive players with a goalie. Um, and so you play man on man. Um, but in deep or in lacrosse, especially, um every time uh offensive player um goes towards the goal or wants to shoot, we call it a dodge. And on every dodge, the person that is on the ball defending the ball, um, we have someone that is always there to help them. Um and they're called the go or the push. Um so if the person that's on ball gets beat or loses the guy, um he always has someone that's there to help him, and then the rest of the guys they're there to help the guy that helped. It's kind of a weird situation, but um you're always guarding two people at the same time. You always have two responsibilities. Yeah. Um, and then in football, uh, you have usually just one responsibility. Um, I was a linebacker, so it was kind of different. We had a run responsibility and a pass responsibility. Um, so you had different responsibilities, but you just you learn how important your responsibility is and how important it is to communicate to your teammates that you can know what you're responsible for and that you can do it, and that you trust them to hold their responsibilities.
SPEAKER_00That's awesome. Um, I really like this word responsibility you're using right now, and we can think of that in multiple aspects in life and sports and everything. I think in sports there's kind of two different types of responsibilities because everyone is there, everyone's on the team, right? But each person has their own responsibility, but there's the responsibility on the field and off the field, right? There's kind of the two different responsibilities we have to take on. And it's kinda sometimes it's hard to it's kind of hard to tell like who's doing what, right? The responsibilities are different for everyone, and sometimes you have a leader that's a great leader on the field trying to help the team win, but you get him off the field and he's a completely different person. It's like you don't want to be around him anymore. How do you try to mix and or I guess put those two things together, put those two responsibilities together to show that you're a leader on and off the field?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, um, one thing that I love living by our coach, Coach Lamb. Um he one of his favorite sayings, one of his things that he teaches us is how you live your life off the field is how you play on the field. Um so if you are going home to a messy room, messy car, um you're missing a bunch of assignments, you're not going to class, um, it's gonna show up when you play lacrosse. Um lacrosse is a very it is it is a team sport, but it's also a very individual sport. Um there's a thousand different individual moments in that game, and you have to win. Um, you have to win the individual moments. And um if you're not living your life off the field um the way that you should be, the way that we're expected, um, we can't expect you or we can't trust you to hold your responsibility while you're on the field, while you're playing that individual sport.
SPEAKER_00That's that's awesome. I really like that quote from your coach. Um, it really is we see it hard because even in professional sports, there's good those guys that we see on the court, and we're like, oh, we want to be like that guy. And then we hear something in their personal life, and it's like, oh well, he's probably not the greatest guy. Maybe you shouldn't look up to him. But it's important for us to kind of have that integrity, right? To to do what's right all the time because if we're not doing what's right off the field, nobody's gonna trust us when we're on the field, and that's just something that's huge. Um so let's kind of let's transition a little bit over into religion now, right? Talked a little bit about Christ while we're still talking about this responsibility, integrity type thing that we're getting we got going. How do you see how is it or what is one what what's something that you do in your life to kind of keep those two responsibilities in religion is when you're in front of everyone or when you're by yourself? What's the how do you how do you keep that integrity or what's your advice on that?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I mean, um it's it's just being the same person when you're with people and when you're with when you're without people. Um I I think it's a huge thing um to always remember Jesus Christ, um to remember his example, to remember the things that he's done for not only me, but um the things that he's done for those around me. Um and I I'm a big believer in um doing these things by yourself, um, doing these things when you're alone. Um, because I mean Jesus Christ teaches us all the time, right? If if you're doing those things just for the show of people, um that they already have their reward, right? That that's that's not what Jesus Christ asks of us, right? He asks us to be an example while we're in front of people, um, but also while we're alone. Um, to do our own work, to um feel the spirit to make time for him by ourselves, but also to be that light, to be that example for those around us.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that's awesome. I love that because I love that example you give is just be the same person, right? We don't have to change anything when we're in front of people when we're behind the scenes. It's just stay the same and be a good person and just remember that Jesus Christ loves us, right? Um, I kind of want to go back to the song that you chose to describe your life. I I pulled up the lyrics here, and I'm gonna kind of read the first two paragraphs that are here, and we're just gonna kind of talk about a little bit, okay? Um, so it starts out, it says, I'm aware of everything that's wrong with me, but still you accept me anyway. I live with a past I can't get past, and it still haunts me. So I'm asking for the courage to make a change. By your grace I have hope. You've already paid every debt I owe. Please take my chains and make me see that by your grace I've been set free. Kind of give us your first impressions from that. I guess it's not first impression, you love this song, so just kind of give us your impressions about this.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I mean it's it it's so important as a Christian um to understand that we have flaws, right? To understand that we make mistakes each and every single day. Um and without Jesus Christ, without his sacrifice, without his grace, without his mercy and love, um, that we would not be set free. Um right. In order to be set free from spiritual sin, from um anything that's going on in our life, right, we have to have Jesus Christ with us at all times. Um and I think it comes to a point as a Christian where um you truly just have to be humble and you have to understand that without Jesus Christ we are little, right? We're nothing. It's it's kind of a it seems like a bad thing to say, um, but that's just that's what helps me personally is knowing that without Jesus Christ I am nothing. Um and that if I want to be something, that I can't make myself be something, right? I can't save myself. Um I have to have the help of my savior in order to be saved.
SPEAKER_00For sure. I love I love how Cody Johnson here in his lyrics, he's talking a lot about he talks a lot about faith, right? He talks about he's he says he's aware of everything he's done wrong. He knows that he's done wrong, and he's just asking for the courage, he's asking for help, honestly. And then I love in kind of the the chorus where it says, I have hope, right? He has that hope, he has that faith, that because of what Jesus Christ has done, because of the sacrifice, because of the the crucifixion, because of um because Jesus paid the price for our sins that his debts are paid, right? Everything's everything's been done because of what Jesus Christ did for us, because of that sacrifice he made, um, and because of the love that he has for us. So it's really this is really an awesome song. I think I'm gonna listen to this a lot now. I'd it's really good. Definitely downloading this one as soon as possible. Um but do you have any other thoughts, any other lines that you really love in this song? Anything specific that we should know? Nothing specific that I can think of. Yeah. Um reading down here, sorry, just a little bit more on this song. It says, I've got a long way to go, but Lord, I know there's not a step I'm gonna take when you're not with me. And that's just a huge reminder to us that God is always with us, right? He's not gonna leave us, he's gonna walk by our side. And that's something I think that some people forget, right? Sometimes we go out, we think we're by ourselves. We struggle, we get sad, we we wanna go curl up in a ball and just do everything on our own, but little do we know when we're there, when we're crying, when we're down, he's by our side, right? He's not gonna let us be. He's gonna he's gonna constantly help us to be better, right? Um let's kind of stick to the topic of music here. Because music, for me, I believe that it brings a spirit, right? It's something that helps us know that God loves us, that he's aware of us, and it's just another peaceful wage for us. It's a to it's something for us to feel peace, right? Thinking of Sunday worship and hymns and that, what what would you say is your favorite hymn? What do you love to listen to?
SPEAKER_01Um I uh I love the hymn Come Thou Found. Um it's just it's I mean, just the lyrics are beautiful. Um when the professionals sing it, it sounds really good. Um I can't sing it that well, but I I love reading the lyrics and I love just um trying to understand um how every blessing that I receive um comes because Jesus Christ um came down and um lived his life for me. Every blessing that I will receive in my future is because Jesus Christ sacrificed his life for me. Um that he allowed me to um change, to become better, um, to be forgiven of my mistakes and to be the person that he wants and needs me to be.
SPEAKER_00That's awesome. Um I also love that hymn, I think. I think it's a great reminder for us to always remember that we're blessed. Like we like we said in the last song, too, is he's always by our side, and everything that's good comes from God, right? All good comes from him, and it's just a blessing for us to remember that. I think that's something we need to always be aware of because if we're not gonna be, if we're not aware of it, we're gonna lose sight of God and we're gonna we're gonna lose that humility. We're gonna go out and try and do things on our own, but it's not gonna work because we forgot. We forgot him, we forgot that he's with us, right? Um now kind of talking about sharing, let's talk about sharing the gospel, right? It's kind of sometimes we can think of it as an awkward topic. It's something that we may not want to go out and do, we don't want to spark up that conversation with someone because we're scared, or it's just not the situation. But how would you how would you say you find ways to share the gospel?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I mean, there are there are so many ways to share the gospel. Um, and I think I think the easiest way to share the gospel is by living the gospel. Um I have an ex I have an example from this semester. Um I had a a buddy, a teammate, um it was a it was like the first couple weeks of the semester, and um he uh he was Christian and um but he was kind of going through a really hard spot and um maybe doubting his faith, I don't really know. Uh maybe just trying to find answers to his questions. Um and I uh I I knew he was going through a rough time and um I kind of just I went over and went over to his house. We hung out for a little bit and uh I just talked to him about what he was going through and um we just had a really amazing conversation about um the gospel of Jesus Christ and um the atonement of Jesus Christ. Um, you know, I I invited him to church. It wasn't a very big pressured thing, it was just a simple invitation of, hey, me and the boys are going to church tomorrow. We'd love if you'd come with us. Um, you know, and and he ended up did coming, and um, I think he's come every week since and he's loved it. And I've seen um the light of Christ enter back into his life, and um it seems like he truly feels the spirit each and every single day. And um I I think he knows what it feels like to be loved by our Heavenly Father. Um and it just started just because I had a simple invitation. Um and I he knew it came from love. I wasn't expecting him to come to church or um I wasn't expecting anything from it. It was just a simple invitation that allowed him to act on his faith, um to act on it and to uh faith.
SPEAKER_00That's awesome. I love I love that. I think it is super important for us to just just invite, right? It's like like we see like it's said in the Bible, it's come and see, right? I think it's super important for just to just uh simply share something small. It doesn't have to be huge, it just has to be a small act of kindness, has to be something that someone that will brighten someone's day, and obviously to this day it's brightened his life, right? Things have changed. He's he has that light of Christ, like you said. Um let's kind of talk about the light of Christ. Let's have you kind of explain that for us.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I mean, so the light of Christ is is uh a little bit a little portion of his spirit that he gives every one of his children. Um and I I believe it's I believe simply put it's goodness. Um I think to the bare nature of it, uh that every single human being, no matter what they've done, has a little bit of goodness in them. Um and I think it's because we all have the light of Christ. Um and so the light of Christ that allows us to not only act in goodness, but allows us to see the goodness in others. Um it allows us to forgive people, it allows us to be kind, courteous. Um yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that's awesome. I love that because like you said, we each have a little bit of it, right? It's kind of there. It just depends on us, right? If we can feel it, if we can notice the good in life. And it's super important for for us to do what's right. If we if we're following the gospel, it's the light of Christ is gonna be brighter, right? People are gonna be able to notice and be like, hey, what's going on? Like you look a little different, like you're glowing, right? It's kind of awesome because you can really recognize that with someone that's really trying to do their best, someone that's really trying to help others come under Christ to just really be a light, right? Like we're asked to be. We're asked to be a light, we're asked to stand up to be different, to help other people know what's right, the right path to follow and where we're supposed to be, right? And it's just it's something that's huge. Um now let's kind of combine the two topics we've talked about in sports, lacrosse, and the gospel. How would you say you do that? How do you combine the two aspects of your life? Because we kind of see for student athletes, talked about this with everyone, it's hard, right? We don't have much time. We have practice, we have weights, we have class, we have exams, we have you name it, we have it, right? How in this busy life do you live the gospel while being a collegiate athlete?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I mean, I it's all about just priorities. Um I think I think it's tool that Satan uses is um trying to tell us that we don't have time for God, um, especially as a college student, as a college athlete, um, there there honestly isn't a lot of time of the day. Um and Satan is really good at telling us that we don't have time um to read our scriptures, to pray, um, to stop and talk to somebody, um, to share the gospel. Um, but I think as we learn to ignore that, as we learn to prioritize God in our life, um, that it it just makes everything so much easier. I've learned that, or I found that as I make time for my Heavenly Father, as I make time each and every day to to pray, to read my scriptures, to have my own personal study, um, I'm allowed to have time to do everything else that I need to do in my life, whether it be schoolwork, whether it be hanging out with friends, whether it be lacrosse with practices and weights and whatnot. Um, as long as I make the time uh to have that personal private time with my Heavenly Father, um it allows me to have time for everything else.
SPEAKER_00That's awesome. I love that. Cause you're right, like sometimes Satan, he's really good at telling us that we don't have time. There's no time for us to say the scriptures, we just gotta go, go, go and do what we need to do. But we see that as we prioritize g God and the scriptures, prayer, whatever it may be, things start to open up and we uh tend to have more time, which is kind of weird. You're kinda like, where did this time come from? Like that wasn't there yesterday. But it just comes and it's just it's just a huge blessing for us because we're prioritizing what's mostly important, right? We're on that path to righteousness, we're doing what we can, and that's huge as as athletes, young athletes, athletes now, collegiate athletes, pro athletes that are trying to live the gospel. We just it's important for us to find that time. Um now talking about your team. We've seen that teams here at Southern Virginia are a little bit different than maybe most teams. There's a bit there's a huge faith base, right? How would you say your team incorporates the gospel or faith into your team aspect?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I mean we we try to make every ounce of effort that we can to include God into our team. Um we we start every practice with, we have a team meeting before practice, and our team meeting, we always start with a prayer and a spiritual thought. Um we have a team church class every Monday night that everyone attends, Christian or not, um, where we all get to learn and um grow closer to our Heavenly Father as we grow closer together. Um and I think it all starts with our coaches. Um, our coaches are great examples of um being Christian and um sharing the light of Christ with everyone around them. Um Coach Lamb and Coach Brody, they do a great job of telling us how to be better men. Um Coach Lamb, our head coach, he always talks, always talks about how his only goal as a lacrosse coach for us is to make us better men. Um obviously he wants to win games and we want to win games, but at the end of the day, um he wants us to be better men so that when we go out into society, um not only are we better Christians, but we can be better husbands, better fathers, um, and better carriers of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00That's awesome. Um, can you elaborate a little bit more on this Monday church class, the team church class that you guys do?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so uh every Monday um at five o'clock, our whole team, we go to a church building and we have uh it's basically a Bible study and we sit around and we all will read a couple scriptures from or a couple stories from the scriptures. Um we'll talk about it. It's it's kind of like an open thing where we're able to ask questions. Um we have a teacher there that is there to help guide us and answer any questions that we can answer, but um we really just we have our teammates just kind of help answer questions and um we really just try to learn as a team, we try to learn how to feel the spirit and how to be close to our Heavenly Father.
SPEAKER_00That's awesome. That's gotta be huge for the team chemistry, right? I feel like that's something that really because it takes you completely away from the sport, right? You're not even thinking about lacrosse at that point. You're in a church building, you're in a place where uh a place of worship, we can say, and you're just studying the Bible with your teammates. I think that's something huge, and I think that's something every single team should do if they want to have that elite team chemistry, because that'll just bring everyone closer to to each other and closer to God too. And that's just I I love that. I think that's something great, and I think that's something that you guys should definitely keep doing, and I think that'll bring a lot of success to the team as you do that. Um now kinda talking about um places of worship and church and whatnot. How do you how do you prioritize your Sundays? How do you how do you make that a highlight of your week?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, um, I think prioritizing prioritizing Sundays is is honestly a really easy thing for me. Um, you know, I I love looking at Sundays as not only a day of rest, but a day of worship. Um I uh obviously like every college student, um we have busy weeks and when when my weeks get busy, I all I can do is just think about the Sabbath. I can think about Sunday. Um I'm able to go to church and um not worry about school, not worry about lacrosse, um, not worry about money or anything. Um I just get to focus and worship my Heavenly Father. Um and one of my favorite things is uh I get to go with my teammates every week. Um every single week we have it's usually one of the back couple rows or pews. We we just have eight to ten lacrosse guys, and um we just sit there and we get to worship together. Um, and we don't talk about lacrosse, we don't talk about anything, we just get to talk about how we felt the spirit that week, how we saw Jesus Christ in our lives, um, and yeah, just worshiping together.
SPEAKER_00That's awesome. I'm really loving the the team aspect that you guys have because we can really tell that everyone, like everything about your team is faith-based. Everything starts with God and build up from there, right? It's God sent us here, God put us on this team together, and now let's stay together, let's do what's right, but let's also go play lacrosse and have fun, right? I think that's something super special that you guys have for sure, and it's definitely something that I encourage for anyone listening, if there's any coaches out there, get that going with your team. Um now kind of talking about, let's go back to kind of throughout the week, right? How do you find ways because we know that God or Jesus Christ, he came down to serve, right? He was here to serve others, not to be served, right? He wasn't looking for someone to come up and help him, but he won he wanted to come down and help other people. That's why he accomplished the atonement, that's why he did everything, right? How do you find ways to serve? Because we know that we're asked to serve, we're asked to kind of help other people's out, other people out, but sometimes we're struggling, right? We feel like we need to wait until someone helps us, but really it's us that needs to get out and serve someone. How do you how do you find time or how do you do that throughout a week?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I mean, uh there's I think there's so many different ways to serve. Um different ways of you know, people on campus that you meet every day, right? Just talking to them, just saying hello to anybody you see. Um we help our teammates out a lot, obviously. We help them with schoolwork, we help them with anything they're struggling with, whether it be the sport or school. Um and then obviously, or not obviously, but it's kind of repetitive. But uh another focus of our team is that we do service projects. Um just this week we did a service project where there's a new business starting up in our town, and um we help them move all kinds of furniture, we helped them move um appliances, we helped them build tables. Um and so as a whole team, um for I think it was for like almost two hours, we we were just helping, you know, we were just helping them start up this new business, and we didn't ask for anything in return, we didn't get paid for it. Um, you know, it's finals week, we're super busy, but yeah, our our coach, he prioritizes serving, um, serving the community. Um our team does a really good job of going out and doing service. Um last year we did Habitat for Humanity, and um each each semester we try to do uh a bunch of sir as much service as we possibly can. Um and it just it comes back to the fact that it's what our coach wants. Um and at the end of the day, it's what our Heavenly Father wants, but um, because it's what our coach wants, it's what he pushes, so that's what we do. Um so yeah.
SPEAKER_00That's super awesome. I love I love the the aspect of service. I think it's something super important for us to go out and help someone and get nothing in return. Because in reality, we kind of are getting something in return, we're getting happiness, right? We go out, we help someone that needs help, and then we just feel we we can feel good because we did a good thing. And that's what brings us joy, that's what brings us peace, is going out and helping someone. Because we can think that we're always the person that needs to be helped, we're the person that somebody should somebody should come move my furniture, somebody should come do my homework for me or whatever. Right. But in reality, it's it's doing the service that brings more joy than I think being served, right? And especially as Christians, as disciples of Jesus Christ, that's what he wants to see from us. That's what that's something that we need to strive to do if we're trying to grow to become like him, right? Obviously, we're never gonna be perfect, we're never gonna be as good as Jesus Christ, but we can do our best on a daily basis to to to to help someone, even if it's just smiling, if it's holding a door open, that can always brighten someone's day, for sure. Um before we kind of wrap things up a little bit, let's talk again a little bit about sports. Maybe it doesn't have to be lacrosse because it hasn't been a long time, but what is what's kind of a fun or funny moment that you've had in your sports that you always go back to that kind of brings you joy?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I mean, um there's so many joyful moments in any sport. Um I think an all-time memory for me was my my freshman year, my first year playing lacrosse. Um we won the conference championship. And you know, it was our first year on the conference. It was the first time the lacrosse team had won a conference championship at this school. Um, you know, and it was it was one of the craziest moments of my life, just um just having all my brothers, all my boys just um there and seeing all the work that we put in through the year. And um, you know, I didn't I barely played that year, it didn't really matter, but yeah, um you know I was it was still just amazing to be a part of it and um just to see how hard work truly does pay off.
SPEAKER_00For sure. And we've seen a lot of success, especially this year, from certain teams here at Southern Virginia, and some of the athletes I've talked to that have won conference championships, and a lot of them base it back to their the the faith, the prayer, the um the the importance they put on the savior Jesus Christ. And obviously that plays a huge role in in sports, and obviously we see that with your team, right? Your team has done that. And kind of looking at that, how well your team's developed, what can we be expecting from your lacrosse team this year? Do we do we see success in the future?
SPEAKER_01Absolutely. Um this year we have we have an amazing group of guys, um, we have amazing freshmen, we have really good returners that came back. Um, and I think I think there's amazing success that we have in our future. Um we have a lot of potential, we have a lot of growth. Um, we have two amazing coaches that are willing to do anything that they can do um to help us win games. Um and it it all comes back to the fact that we love our Heavenly Father. Um, we want to serve him, and we know that he cares about what we care about, and we really care about lacrosse. Um and not only do we love winning, we we hate losing. Yeah. Um and I think that's that's one of the biggest driving factors is um the fact that we, you know, as a brotherhood is what we call our team. And um, as a brotherhood, we we hate the fact we hate losing. Um we see it every practice, we compete every practice, and um there's punishment when we lose, but um you can see that everybody on our team, whether it's the freshmans up to the seniors, um, they hate losing. Yeah, and sometimes that's that's that's better than wanting to win. Is you just you have that drive that you just want to be better, um, and you want to show people that you can worship your Heavenly Father while also being an amazing athlete.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that's awesome. I love that. And I I think we see great things from you and from your f in your future for sure. Um kind of wrapping up now, we're gonna go to what we do at the end of every episode. And um, I'm gonna ask you to share two things. Okay, I'm gonna have ask you to share your favorite Bible verse and kind of why. And then I'm also gonna ask you to share the best piece of advice that you have for any athlete who's trying to stay on the path.
SPEAKER_01Um, yeah, my favorite Bible verse. Um, there's so many. Um I I the one that comes to my mind after our discussion and what we've talked about tonight is um the end of Acts 5. I think it's Acts 5, like 34 to the end. Um, and it talks about how the apostles are taken and um they're put before a judge and they are tried, and um a man comes up and says, Don't try these men, because if it's the work of God, you can't stop it. But if it's the work of man, it'll come to naught or it'll come to an end by itself. Um and as we see obviously today, right, the work of those apostles are still in practice, right? It's still working to this day. Um, our Heavenly Father's work is continuing, right? It's it can't be stopped by man. Um and it's further evidence that this is the work of God, yeah, that it continues and that no man can stop it no matter what they say. And one of my favorite verses is at the end of the chapter when when the apostles are released, um they they go and they rejoice. Um, and they've rejoiced that they were able to suffer shame for Jesus Christ's name. Um, and I think that's that's one of the most powerful scriptures I've ever read. Just being able to wear the name of Christ on your countenance, and even if you suffer shame for it, um you get to rejoice because you get to be counted worthy to stand shoulder to shoulder with Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00That's awesome. I love that, and I think that's a that's a great reminder that we should we should be able to do whatever for Jesus, right? He's done everything for us, and we should be able to handle what he wants us to handle, right? Yeah, and he's never gonna give us a trial that's too hard, right? Whatever trials in our path, he knows that we can overcome it for sure. And now, what's your best piece of advice for an athlete trying to stay on the path?
SPEAKER_01The best piece of athlete or the best piece of advice that I would give would just be to choose God. Right? We we read in the scriptures all the time that today is the day to choose God, um, to serve Him, to worship Him and only Him. Um put all the other things aside, whether it is your sport or whether it's other things that hold you back from God. Um I think that's the greatest piece of advice I've ever been given. Um But yeah, that would be it is just to choose to serve God today, um to choose to be a disciple of Jesus Christ, um, to choose to have the Spirit with you.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that's awesome. I love that. Thank you. Thanks, Caden, for being here today and sharing this advice with everyone. Um thanks again to all the listeners uh for taking the time to listen to this episode and listen to Caden and his story. Um I hope all of us can kind of take what he said and apply it into our lives and make sure we always choose God. Uh and remember to follow the Instagram to get daily updates and daily scriptures and updates for future episodes on what's going to come out. Thanks everyone for listening and always remember to stay on the path.