A couple of days ago I overheard a sports cast on the radio. It had to do with basketball players. I didn’t hear the whole report, but I heard enough to follow the story.

The story had to do with two fairly high-profile, high-energy players who found themselves playing for the same team. The reporter was interviewing one of the men; there was some question and concern about whether the two men would be able to play well with each other as teammates; how would these two very dynamic men work together?
“How are you going to work it out?” the reporter asked.
“Well,” the player answered, “It all comes down to spending time on the court together.”
He was referring to practice times and the process of learning to work together. “That’s it,” I thought. “Getting out there and playing together.” Such a simple concept, but so true: the time spent working together would facilitate the process of these two strong individuals becoming team players.

During “court time” these men would learn each other; they would learn to “read” each other, they would learn each other’s “style”: each other’s strengths and weaknesses. And as the desired outcome, they would emerge from “court time” more ably functioning together as a finely tuned mechanism, gears able to cleanly mesh, accomplishing profitable and reliable results: men able to work side-by-side, under pressure, to attain a common goal.

The reason this little interview so resonated with me is because this was the experience I had with my husband before we were married; we got to know each other by working together, side-by-side, on common goals – “court time.” We had the privelege and responsibility to work together in many different endeavors, and you do get to know a person when you work together, day-in and day-out, sometimes under pressure, but all the time under a variety of circumstances. I consider it one of the great priveleges of my life to have worked together with my husband in these ways. And this pattern of collaboration has transferred over into our married life. We have undertaken many projects and adventures together and our marriage has been enriched by “court time.”

So, in the rush of life and in the demands of the day, when I find my self functioning more as an individual than as a team player, when projects are attempted, but the gears don’t seem to be meshing, when in any mutual endeavor, whether marriage or family or business outside the family, I want to remember the words of the interview and recall the wisdom of “court time”:
“Well, it all comes down to spending time on the court together.”