I sat down at my computer this morning without knowing which direction my thoughts might take me. I sometimes laughingly say that I wake up in a new world about every fifteen minutes, but that really is not true. It is infrequent that something from the day before doesn't get carried over in my thought processes on almost a daily basis.
That's not to say that I live with a lot of unfinished business, but at some point, don't we all? I've heard it said that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Sometimes those good intentions fall by the wayside due to time restraints, coupled with work and family commitments. How many Divine appointments do we miss because or priorities are elsewhere?
I have a friend that sends me a Scripture to read daily. This morning, he shared a verse from I Corinthians 9: 24-25 (ESV): "Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it. Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable."
Though I have not been watching the Summer Olympics in Paris, that's not to say that my mind hasn't been on the kinds of work, commitment and perseverance it takes to qualify to represent your country in the Olympic games. You don't get there without letting your sport consume almost every waking moment of your life,
I've recently watched a couple of movies that chronicled the time-consuming commitment of athletes representing the United States in the 1936 Olympic games held in Berlin. The first was The Boys In A Boat that focused on the rowing team from the University of Washington. The main character identified in the movie was Joe Rantz, who was a child from a hard place. Following his mother's death when he was four years old, he was primarily abandoned by his family. Yet, all of the team were from lower-middle-class families that had to struggle to earn their way through school in the depths of the Depression.
The most recent movie I watched regarding the 1936 Olympic Games was The Race, featuring Jesse Owens, the youngest of ten children from the impoverished family of a sharecropper. Jesse was an African American track and field athlete who won four gold medals at the 1936 Olympic games in Berlin.
Both movies highlighted the kinds of work, commitment and perseverance it takes to even qualify to compete. By the same token, the point that Paul was making when he wrote to the church at Corinth is the importance of one's commitment to Christ to reflect the totality of who (or whose) we are.
"Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it. Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable."
Sometimes I need a reminder or gentle redirection that God needs to be the first priority and others second. It was never God's intent that his people be self-absorbed.
All My Best!
Don
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