Spiritual Suicide

Being a top level athlete in one sense is one of the hardest places to be a Christian. Here’s why... it seems everywhere in N. America we breath the air of self. Everything around us seems to cater to our own individualism and promoting our independence. Satisfying our every desire with stuff is the accepted way of living. For the athlete who’s recognized for their sporting prowess it all gets bumped up a notch. It’s so easy for an aspiring athlete to get a sort of tunnel vision with the only thing in sight the goal to be better, faster, stronger, etc. you embark on a quest to do everything in your life to achieve personal success. This quest can be intensely self focussed. You can easily lose the ability to think about anything other than yourself and your own improvement.

Add to this the reinforcement elite athletes receive from people around them. I still remember a pro football chaplain telling me he’s seen it time and time again where he’ll bring in an older, seasoned pastor to deliver the pre-game chapel message in the locker room, and the minute they enter that supposed hallowed ground they become a 12 year old fan again. Acting in ways that quickly end any influence and credibility they might have had. At a recent Olympics where I was a chaplain we had a situation.... each night we had a Bible discussion meeting for the athletes. A couple of the inexperienced chaplains wanted to open it up to all the volunteers in the athlete village. Now, our roles as chaplains did include ministering to volunteers and even families of athletes, etc., but this ½ hour nightly meeting was the one place these athletes could come and be with their peers without fans, hangers on and others wanting to be around them paying them special attention. The athletes weren’t elitists in their attitudes, it’s just that as Christians they didn’t need that temptation to feel more important or more special than others around them. But so often, for the elite athlete that’s how people treat them and then one can easily fall into the trap of believing that you’re just a little better and more exceptional than others.

Christian athletes...make sure you’re "soaked in scripture". Everyday get into the Bible read things like Is. 43.7 "everyone who is called by My name, & whom I have created for My glory..." Or Ps. 115.1 "Not to us O Lord, but to Your name be glory". Read and realize how absolutely dependant we are on God. Every breath you take (& long distance athletes take a LOT of them!) is a gift from God. Make sure you’re grateful for every unique gift you’ve been given and allow your heart to respond in love. This will change everything about your training and competition. It’s not even thinking about yourself and how "awesome" you’re going to do and be. It’s all about that Creator you love so much. It’s all about making HIM look good, not yourself.

Granted, this isn’t easy. Everything around you will be going in the other self seeking direction, but with Holy Spirit empowerment, right Bible thinking and true heart engagement (loving Jesus) you’ll be training and competing on a whole different plane.

BARRIERS TO WORSHIP

In my previous blog entry I looked at the desire to worship. Today I want to share some thoughts from one of our recent Olympic athlete SportFaith discussion groups.

Worship can take many forms. We tend to think that singing praises is the only way to worship, but we have many ways. In Rom. 12. Paul says that offering up our bodies as a living, holy sacrifice is an act of worship. Sounds like training & competition could certainly fall under Paul’s definition. We can look at the specifics of this in a future blog, but for now I want to discuss 4 barriers to worship that will be taken away once we arrive in Heaven. Four barriers that we can seek to minimize during our time here on Earth so we can maximize our worship here.

Barrier #1 is not seeing God sufficientlyWhen you see something amazing it’s natural to praise it. Great sport moments such as Sidney Crosby’s 2010 gold medal goal, or Bob Beamon’s world record long jump in the ‘68 Olympics that took over 23 years to finally be broken...mandate praise! You can’t help yourself. Same with God. When you really see Him for who He is, you can’t help but praise Him. Paul tells us in 1 Cor. 13.12 that on Earth we see God dimly, but in Heaven we’ll be face to face and see Him clearly. We won’t be able to keep from praising Him up there.

We can reduce this barrier by seeing more of Him now. Knowing God, understanding His ways, observing what He’s made...the more we know, the more we’ll want to worship Him now.

Barrier #2 is failing to clearly see God’s grace to us and his many good gifts. "The highest angel to the lowest insect are dependant upon and maintained by the goodness of God. Those in Heaven see this with perfect clarity." (J. Edwards)

Those in Heaven rightfully understand the greatness and dignity of Jesus and how incredible it was for Him to become a man and lay down His life, enduring the shame and gruesomeness of the cross. We have a small sense of this now, but when we see Christ in His full glory, the reality of what He did for us will be astounding.

Comprehending and intentionally enjoying God’s gifts will automatically draw our hearts to worship.

Barrier #3 is imperfect humility. High level sport is precarious for faith. Here’s why... the more you attain, the more glorification the world gives you. This is suicide for the soul. A Christian athlete must constantly be on guard against self elevation and assigning praise to themself.

Because of the first 2 barriers being removed in Heaven (all these solutions flow into one another), it will be automatic to say as the Psalmist did in Ps. 115.1 "not to us o Lord, not unto us, but to thy name be the glory". Humility will be perfected in Heaven, we’ll see God for who He truly is and ourselves for who we are.

The Christian athlete cannot afford to neglect one day of drawing deeply into God’s word enjoy seeing Him rightly and understand what He’s done for us and comprehend clearly where we stand in His divine Kingdom



 
Barrier #4 is that love for God isn’t perfect. But it will be in Heaven. On Earth it’s possible to be thankful, but not genuine... a counterfeit thankfulness devoid of love. Sincere thankfulness is full of love and it can’t help itself. The greater a person’s love is, the more disposed to praise they will be. When your love for God is strong you will proportionally seek His glory and love to see Him glorified.

"Where is your heart at?" I know longer ask Christians how their walk with God is going, because where their heart is at is much more important. Do you purposefully aim to grow deeper in love with God? Make it a priority.



Can you imagine how joyful such unhindered praise would be? Joy is a great ingredient in praise and your spirit is elevated to eminent heights when you are participating in the greatest, most honouring thing we were created to do!

WILL YOU BE BORED IN HEAVEN?

Will you be bored in Heaven? Almost anyone you know would say they want to go to Heaven (though many seem to be unsure of how to actually get there). But do they really want to go to Heaven? Most people rarely go to church these days (in my town it’s probably less than 2% on any given Sunday). The past several years I’ve seen an interesting trend in Christians that don’t go to any church. But I’ve wondered if you can be a Christian and not DESIRE to go to church. Here’s why... the main occupation of Heaven is going to be worship. Worship of Jesus. Look at the descriptions in Revelation. God gave visions to John of the eternal Heavenly worship service. It’s awesome! Rev. 5.8-9; 7.9-12; 15.2f; 14.2: these all describe amazing scenes of numbers too vast to count making a loud, beautifully melodious song of praise to Jesus.

Granted, some of our churches are sorely lacking in superlative musical experiences, but in the end it’s the heart’s desire. Do you really have a heart to worship? If so, it won’t matter completely if the music is perfect or not, or even if the style is your favourite. What matters is that the King of all Kings, Jesus, is worshipped, praised, honoured and made the absolute centerpiece of what’s going on.

Occasionally I’ve pondered whether or not many of my semi-religious friends would actually really want to go to Heaven. Imagine knowing someone that even though they’re the most morally pure, beautiful persons ever, they just for some reason rub you the wrong way. Who knows why...maybe they just remind you of your own shortcomings, but for whatever reason you just don’t like them. Now imagine that you’re locked up in a room with that person for all eternity.....yuck! If you’ve never had any interest in praising Jesus, making much of him and singing to him, do you really think you’re going to want to do that for all eternity? Heaven is the place where everything revolves around Jesus and worshipping him.

For me, when I think about these things it challenges me to make sure that when I get to Heaven and I get to finally see Jesus face to face I don’t want Him to be a stranger. I want to carry on what I’ve been pursuing on Earth, only in a much more intense, personal and unspoiled way.

Dealing with Disappointment

Ok....time to start doing something with this blog. My "skitrainingcentral.blogspot.com" has been getting a lot of hits... this one hardly any. I wonder where my heart is truly at sometimes. Ski racing and training or God’s Kingdom. No reason why they can’t come together.

Every athlete faces disappointment in their competitive lives. I think my personal experience is that for every "wonder race" (the ones you truly revel in with your success-when it all seems to come together), there’s probably about five races that were generally forgettable. My recent ski blog shares my disappointment at my final int’l race. But is it about results anyway?



I love what Stu McMillan (popular Calgary based coach) has to say about this. (His blog: www.mcmillanspeed.com)

"Possibly cliche number one in the Great Book of Cliches states that life is about the journey - not the destination....And it is in this process that success lies.

It is the same with sport. If you are waiting until the end-product of your work for your satisfaction, then you will be disappointed. Revel in the training. In your experiences. The challenges. In the friendships you make. The relationships you build. With others. With yourself. In the strength you possess. Your will. Your commitment. Learn from your failures. For there will be many.


Don't be proud of your perfectionism. It is a flaw. The struggle to avoid failure is a fear-driven, exhausting, stressful way to live. Perfectionism will not lead to high-performance.

High performance comes from embracing your fears. From confronting failure. From be-friending your imperfection."

I’ll even notch things up a bit.

As a Christian athlete, we’ve got even more purpose and reason for triumphantly persevering. Check out Romans 5.3f:

"And not only this, but we also exult in our tribulations, knowing that tribulation brings about perseverance; and perseverance proven character, and proven character, hope; and hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us."

What’s more important than good results? Character. God is way more concerned about our character.... about becoming like Jesus, than He is about results (though I think He does care, because we care-but in a different way). Another cliche (maybe #2 Stu) is, "there's Joy in the Journey". Really living is when you take each setback and roadblock and go about striving to solve the puzzle. Romans 5 tells us there is a great outcome in doing this... hope. Character. Experiencing God along the way (via the Holy Spirit).

I’ve got way more to say on this, but I’m keeping my bposts short. More later! Thanks for reading!

Discipline

Does the Christian athlete have an advantage? Consider this... what character quality does every great athlete possess? Discipline. The ability to do the hard things, the little things, do them right, stick to it, persevere, etc. It’s the stand out feature that top sports people MUST have.

What does the Bible say on this? We’ve been given discipline... 2 Timothy 1.7 says, "For God has not given us a spirit of timidity, but one of power, love and discipline." The original Greek word here is only used once in the Bible- "sofronismon". It’s a unique word that can also be translated as "having soundness of mind, self control, moderation". And remember, we’ve been given this.

In the Galatians fruit of the Spirit list, self control is also mentioned. "The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace....self-control". Again, this is GIVEN to us, as a gift, a supernatural endowment.

One of the coolest sport motifs in the Bible, and there are several, is in 1 Corinthians 9.25, "Everyone who competes in the games exercises self-control in all things. They then do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable". Along the same lines 2 Peter 1.6 admonishes us to supply self-control among a list of other qualities that will render us useful & fruitful in God’s Kingdom.

So on the one hand we’ve been given an internal empowering, but in other passages we’re commanded to apply self-control/discipline. Like many things in the Christian life we’ve got promises to believe in, but also admonitions to give it our best effort.

How cool is it that we can step out in faith, believing that we’ve been given the gift of discipline and make sure we’re exercising it to the best of our ability?

So what do you think? Does the Christian athlete have an advantage? It’s up to you to exercise that faith muscle and unleash God’s discipline power!

Lance...really LiveStrong!!

So, the Lance firestorm seemingly has begun to reach its vertex. Yes, I’ve joined in on the discussions. We’ve talked about the arrogance & lack of accountability for doping control bodies (WADA, USADA, etc.). Discussed Lance’s obvious culpability and everyone else’s in the peleton at that point in history. How overconfident Lance has been and assured of his invincibility in the matter. Yet one conversation hasn’t taken place and in the eyes of the most essential viewpoint, it’s the most important.

I still remember listening to Lance’s first book (audio version) as I drove home with Arturo Kinch from a ski training camp in our Olympic preparation for the 2002 Winter Olympics. As we heard Lance’s story two things really struck me. The first was how incredible it was that he survived. Doctors only gave him a 4% chance of living. Of course we all know the story how he not only survived, but went on to win the world’s most physically challenging sporting contest....Le Tour, multiple times. The other thing that really struck me was how prideful and impervious Lance was to God’s good graciousness to him.

Lance’s story is a true hard luck to world conquerer tale. Yet along the way God gave him opportunities to submit to his creator, but in each instance-especially coming that close to death and given a second chance, Lance seemed to reject God’s touch in his life. There never seemed to be gratefulness for these moments or gratitude for being granted another opportunity at life. Even Lance’s foundation (that he’s no longer officially a part of due to the fall out), "LiveStrong" exudes feelings of independence and self reliance.

What could have been or will be the best possible outcome of all this? That he won’t be stripped of his 7 Tour victories (happened today)? That he won’t be required to return his Olympic medal or the millions of prize money earnings and sponsorship dollars? That the court of public opinion will still validate this once amazing hero? In my estimation none of these can compare to what God’s good plan could very well be for Lance...the breaking of his pride and finally humbly submitting to God.

Yes, all this could be the very best thing that ever happened to Lance Armstrong. God, in his goodness, knows that this is the only way to break through Lance Armstrong’s bulletproof pride. Of course, Jesus said it best when he stated, "what does it profit a man to gain the world but forfeit his soul?" 7 tour wins, amassing a worldly fortune and the adulation of millions doesn’t mean a thing when you stand before God on the day of judgement.

So right now I could easily imagine Lance shaking his fist at God and saying, "Why are you doing this to me?!!" God’s answer, "because I love you with an infinite love and I infinitely care about you and your soul...and that you’ll be all you can be and enter into my Kingdom."

Let’s pray for Lance, that he won’t burn up this most clear chance to reconcile with God.

Can an Athlete be Truly Humble?

This morning I was reading from Henry Scougal’s "The Life of God I the Soul of Man." He has some interesting thoughts on humility. I wonder if most people would imagine they don’t have a problem with being humble. Yet, Scougal makes some comments that make me realize how incomplete my own humility levels are (I know, some of you are thinking "Sellers you have every reason to be humble!).

Ever feel slighted by someone? Not respected? Treated short of the esteem we feel we deserve? Likely we all do at times. But check out this quote, "the humble person hath the advantage when he is despised, that none can think more meanly of him than he doth of himself; and therefore he is not troubled at the matter, but can easily bear those reproaches which wound the other to the soul." Wow! I like that. When accused by someone of some perceived shortfall your response can truly be.... "if they only really knew..." The humble knows they’ve got a lot of issues that need changing ("& thanks for the help in pointing them out!").

Maybe this can be a good barometer of our humility quotient.... how easily does criticism roll off your back?


More significantly, humility brings us joy. Scougal states that the greatest satisfaction and sweetness come when at the "lowest prostration of their souls before God, having a deep sense of the divine majesty and glory, they sink to the bottom of their beings, and vanish and disappear in the presence of God."   Cool.   True humility is when we begin to understand our place in relation to the majesty of God. In fact Scougal says it’s impossible to express the great pleasure and delight we experience in this.

I can’t help but compare this to those competitions when everything falls into place and you’re in that psychological bubble where everything feels easy, fun and energizing. In these instances you totally lose yourself. There’s no thoughts about how you look or what others think of you. It’s just pure enjoyment of the present moment. Connecting with God intimately has the same effect. There’s such joy in that moment that its inconceivable to have any thoughts of yourself. They just get swallowed up in Christ’s gloriousness.

One more... Wanna truly be at peace with yourself and others? Then listen to this, "the proud and arrogant person is a trouble to all that converse with him, but most of all unto himself : every thing is enough to vex him; but scarce anything sufficient to content and please him."

I can’t help but feel that so much of our sport pursuits (or any pursuit for that matter) are aimed at propping up the ego...the self. The Christian is to surrender self. But this task is impossible to do on it’s own unless you lose yourself in joyfully revelling in the perfections of Christ. When you do as described by Scougal, then the self naturally and even unconsciously dissolves in His jubilant glory.

I gotta-wanna pray more!