Despite my lifelong connection to athletics—star
basketball player brother, cross country/track runner and coach husband, athletic
son, etc.—I have not paid much attention to the Olympic coverage this winter
until last Thursday night. I was working
on my laptop and figure skating competition began on television. A U.S. skater, Jeremy Abbott, was about to
begin his program, and mention was made of his “nerve” issues in high stakes competitions.
As
the program began, his first jump attempt was disastrous, one of the worst
falls I have ever seen, and he lay smashed up against the edge of the
rink. It didn’t seem that he would or
perhaps could continue, but—and this is a good kind of “but”—somehow he
rose and did so with great determined confidence and skill, completing the
remainder of his program almost flawlessly.
Scott Hamilton, a former Olympic champion commentator, could hardly
contain his surprise and joy at what the young man was able to do having fallen
so badly just before. I was excited for
him even though I never knew his name before that night.
It
would be interesting to have seen into his mind and soul those few minutes he
lay on the ice after a fall that took him slamming to the hard surface all
along his side, crushing against his body and against his hopes of an
outstanding performance. Perhaps in
gathering himself, he considered his many years of training and competing and
the importance of what would probably be his last Olympic opportunity. Perhaps he cried out to God for help, or
someone else interceded on his behalf.
But it was clear that he rose from that fall and within seconds,
composed himself to finish what he had started with grace and triumphant
expertise.
In
Paul’s letters, he at times used athletic metaphors to illustrate aspects of
living the Christian life of real, enduring and victorious faith in Christ. There was training to do and prizes to be
won. Once he asks, “Do you not know that
in a race all the runners compete, but (only) one receives the prize? So run (your race) that you may lay hold (of
the prize) and make it yours. Now every
athlete who goes into training conducts himself temperately and restricts
himself in all things. They do it to win
a wreath that will soon wither, but we (do it to receive a crown of eternal
blessedness) that cannot wither” (1 Cor. 9:24,25 Amplified version). Being spiritually strong is not for the faint
of heart!
Eric
Liddell, a real life Scottish runner in the movie, Chariots of Fire, was also a strong man of faith who had felt God’s
call on his life and later served as a missionary to China. In the 1924 Olympics depicted in the movie,
he chose not to run the 100 meters race because it was to be held on a
Sunday. As the film shows him running in
another event instead, he runs with his competitors and these words are “spoken”
in his voice as the race unfolds: “So
where does the power come from to see the race to its end—from within.” As his head goes back in running to the first
place finish, Liddell’s voice recalls what he had told his sister at an earlier
time. “God made me for a purpose. He also made me fast. When I run, I feel His pleasure.”
Like
Jeremy Abbott, we as Christians need to be “in training,” growing strong in the
things of God (earnest seeking in prayer, study, fellowship and service) and
the power of His Spirit. Like Jeremy and
the apostle Paul, we will at times find ourselves feeling “persecuted . . .
struck down, but not destroyed” (2 Cor. 4:9).
Drawing on God’s presence and strength within us, may we triumph as we
follow this exhortation: “let us run
with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author
and finisher of our faith” (Heb. 12:1,2).
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