• Make 15 layups in 2 minutes
• Make 10 consecutive “elbow” jump shots within 4 minutes
• “Spider” dribble for 2 minutes without losing control
• Make 10 consecutive baseline jump shots within 4 minutes (each side of the basket)
• Make 5 consecutive top-off-the-key jump shots
• “Spider” dribble for 2 minutes without losing control
• Make 10 consecutive free-throws
• Rest

This was the basketball workout I made for myself as I was getting ready to enter the seventh grade. It was the summer and I wanted to get better for the next basketball season. I’d run through this workout twice a day in my driveway. Every result was recorded on a piece of paper that sat next to my mom’s kitchen timer, both atop the tent trailer that was always parked next to the driveway.

After a few days, I noticed that my determination to progress through this workout faded. I might skip one of the drills. I might make only 8 consecutive free throws and then call it “good enough.” After a week it was clear that my commitment to my development wasn’t living up to my expectations when I wrote the workout.

In an effort to refocus myself I stopped playing with my basketball and started playing with my head. I would convince myself that my basketball coach was lurking in the trees across the street. He was watching me, evaluating my practice, evaluating my work ethic, evaluating if I was as good as I thought I could be…or thought I was!

It worked! I would stick to the plan that I wrote out on paper. I wouldn’t purposefully forget to set the timer which was intended to pressurize the practice. But, then, after a few days, it didn’t work. At least it didn’t work as well as it did a few days earlier.

“I’ve got it. I’ll switch out the evaluator lurking in the trees.”

It was no longer my seventh grade coach, it was the eight grade coach. Done; that worked.

Until it didn’t.

So, I quickly transitioned up to the High School coach. That was the ultimate. That kept me motivated; held me accountable to the workout, and placed a good amount of stress on me to make the practice even more “real life.”

The evaluator in the trees didn’t stop in the summer before seventh grade. It didn’t stop after I was a starter on a Pac-12 basketball team. It didn’t stop when I walked off the court and into the classroom, or into a friends house, or into my family’s house, or into a movie with a cute girl, or into the office, or when I walked into church. There was always an “evaluator in the trees.”

The problem is, the evaluator was often unrelenting in questioning if I was working hard enough, if I was good enough, or if I cared enough. I would get reminders of my failings, reminders where I could tweak this-or-that to improve, reminders that maybe my heart just wasn’t in it, reminders that with just a little more discipline or forethought I cold be better—I should be better.

Why not step away from the evaluator; tell him that he isn’t welcome? Well, I tried that. I felt that I wasn’t living up to my potential when I wasn’t being poked, pushed, and pulled to achieve more, be more, love more, care more, and feel more. As a result, I wanted to invite the evaluator back.

The evaluator was me. The evaluator was my internal shamer yelling at me, kicking me, pushing me to do more to prove that I was worthy and not wasteful. This internal shamer would pull out all the people that mean the most to me to motivate me.

• “Your parents would be so upset if you don’t maximize all your basketball talents.”
• “God will accept you once you are more consistent in praying for others besides yourself.”
• “You better be more ambitious at work so that your girlfriend and her family will accept you.”
• “Your daughters will turn into unproductive people in society if you spend a night or two out with friends per week.”

The true evaluator is God. I know this and need to claim it. I need to renew the close relationship with Him that I have had in the past. I need to pray, read, and be in the company of believers to embrace and receive His grace and to claim the freedom I have in His love. I need to trust Him which includes trusting in His grace and freedom. Because, only with God as my evaluator will I move from a functional life to a fulfilled life.