As the Summer Olympics begin tomorrow, we will watch men and women who put in years of sacrifice and training, pushing their bodies to their very limits, culminating in those few moments to compete against the best of the best.
They will remind us that training hurts, but it’s a good hurt. Sore muscles, aching limbs and exhaustion are all a part of training; going farther today than you were capable of yesterday, pushing beyond your comfort zone, doing what would have been impossible before.
As it is in the physical, so it is in our spiritual lives. The physical world is a reflection, an image, of the spiritual; it is the training ground to teach spiritual principles we will use throughout life.
Robert Ritzenhein
The world right now needs spiritual athletes — people who train for their place in the race of life.
We see the goal of being sold-out, dedicated followers of Jesus and want it, but are we willing to pay the price? We must be single-minded to reach any high goal in life. To follow Jesus in this way, we must put everything else out of the way, or at least way down the line.
When we choose our goal in life and move toward that we learn, we grow. And at times, we may be humiliated. Others may mock us and tell us to quit. We may fall flat on our faces, but we will get back up. We may limp to the finish, but we will finish.
Each of us has been endowed by God with certain ideas, dreams and goals that we must overcome hurdles to achieve even as others tell us what we’re attempting can’t be done.
Like the Olympic torch, we keep even the tiniest flame of faith alive. And we push on. We will not allow that flame to die.
Remember, be so sure of your calling, of who you are in Christ and what you are destined to do, that you will not so much as flinch in the sight of adversity. When things are handed to us, we don’t value them as much as when we have to dig and work for them.
We make time for the important things in our lives and if something is extremely important, we will clear our schedules and push everything else out of the way in order to give that one thing our full attention.
“There is nothing holding you back from living your Olympic-sized dreams.”
Those dreams are not going to happen if we haphazardly go about life and dip our toes in the dream and idea pool, or casually live out our Christian faith. The people who reach their goals, who shoot for the moon, who attempt the impossible, do it by determination and dogged perseverance.
As you watch the summer games, remember: There is nothing holding you back from living your Olympic-sized dreams. Nothing except your own lack of vision, faith and determination.
W.C. Field quipped, “Remember, a dead fish can float downstream, but it takes a live one to swim upstream.”
When attempting to swim upstream, prepare to be whacked, sideswiped and bashed by all the dead and weak fish surging downstream. Only the most determined, single-minded and focused can fight against the current and endure the onslaught.
If we are determined to live for and follow Jesus, we may look to others like extremists, fanatics, zealots or brainwashed fools.
Over the next two weeks, remember also the wise words of William Arthur Ward (1921-1994), an American motivational writer: “Adversity causes some men to break, others to break records.”
Robert Ritzenhein is a retired missionary living in Japan.