healthy competitions

As my family and I watch the Olympics I am awestruck at all the athletes. All there training, hard work, sacrifice and discipline has brought them to this place of competing with the best in the the world. There goal is the gold and their aim is to out do the last performance. These outstanding athletes have given their life to accomplishing outrageous achievements. They need the competition to push them, to drive them, to train.

Their diligence has paid off and their reward is to compete in the world Olympics, the next step in their love of the game. Some of the young people we have watched have outdone there personal best but they still did not win a medal. Somebody was still better. Some have crashed, failed, fallen or had been disqualified. The competition's over before it even began. Yet others have overcome unbelievable odds. They have pushed past there heartache or pain and gave their sport all they had. With broken bones or broken hearts, they performed and competed with such grace. Even if they did not walk away with a medal around their neck, they had conquered something greater. Defeat of the soul.

Earlier this week I was caught in the middle of a competition and I felt like the judge. One person was performing a task that another had done before hand, and doing a much better job at it. Yet, I noticed that this person's goal wasn't about performing well but performing better than the last person. It seemed to be their goal to out do the other but not necessarily excel in the task. And here I am being asked the question of which I prefer. Who Gets the gold? My words of affirmation would be a gold medal around someones neck. (O.k. I may be being a little dramatic, but you can see my point, right?)

The spirit of competition can be a good thing or a very ugly thing. In one way it drives us to excellence. But in other ways our only job may be to out do or out shine our competitor. There is a balance to competitions and it can be done in a healthy way. But when our driving force is to crush another and not to aim for excellence we have missed it. Competition really does seem to be an issue of the heart. We can judge a performance that was better than another, but depending on how the person competed will determine if they ran well.

I am a person who loves justice but not everybody gets a ribbon. Sometimes somebody is better than you no matter how good you are. So it is, when judging a performance, the higher number wins. I am so glad it doesn't work that way in the spiritual race. Hebrews 1:6b tells us He rewards those who earnestly seek him. Our prize has to do with how much we are seeking Him not how well we perform. Phew, what a relief.

As a competitor our best isn't always gold worthy, but it is prize worthy because of the diligence that was put into it. This is why God is such a perfect judge because we as humans, judge with our eyes. We know what "looks" good but He knows what "is" good. He looks at the heart. Diligence is rewarded, excellence is the fruit.

We are called to run in such a way that we get the prize, (The prize being the One we are running after). One may growl before she skies down a dangerous slope, one may crank music and one may sit quietly. Who am I to say which way is best? This same truth applies to other "competitions" as well. We need to fight the good fight, to run a good race and remember we are running and fighting with others who are diligently seeking Him as well. Some may be running with a broken heart or an injured soul and their performance is just the perseverance to finish. Let's make sure we acknowledge that with our teammates. Some may run past our personal best and appear better than us. Let's guard our hearts from jealousy so we run a good race. And sometimes we will run past another. Let's make sure we encourage the one who is slowing down to not give up.
As for judging between competitions, if at all possible, let's leave it to the experts.

1 Corinthians 9:24 Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize

Hebrews 2:1
Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us

ice storm

 

We went to see our middle son graduate from boot-camp and found ourselves in the middle of one of Oklahoma's worst ice storms. We arrived early Thursday Morning, got our precious 4 hours of sleep before we went to to see our son on his base for family day. It was cold already so when the rain began to fall it felt like syrup. Freezing rain soon coated all of Lawton and every tree, power line and road was encased or covered in ice. By Friday they canceled the graduation ceremony and closed the base to all visitor.

I sat in our hotel room in near tears. We came all this way to see our sons major accomplishment and now we can't see him nor does he get a ceremony to celebrate his achievement. With nothing better to do, we decided to check out Lawton, Oklahoma. We went to find a Starbucks. There was one and it was closed due to the ice storm. Much of the city was without power. We were one of the fortunate people to still have power in our motel. Many people were freezing in there homes. Wal-mart seemed to be the place to go for it was stuffed to the rafters with people getting supplies. This is not where I want to be today.

We heard of a famous place to get a hamburger so I googled it and we followed the directions out in the middle of no mans land. "What is a burger joint doing out here?" I thought. As we drove for miles all we saw was frozen land, swagging power lines and broken trees rolling forever across the land. I half way thought to see a frozen little tumble weed come clinking across the road. As we drew closer to our little red dot on our GPS we could see that someone played a cruel joke on us with the directions. For there was not Cafe. We were in the middle of a unwelcoming, barren land and I couldn't see my son, there was no hamburgers joint and no coffee. I was feeling quite sorry for myself.

I kept praying "Jesus please give us a gift to day, I really want to see my son, Please Jesus, just one little gift. Open the base, Lord, Open doors no man can shut" I prayed this through out our drive.
Rather than turn around we followed the map to the next road thinking it would take us back around. Another cruel GPS joke, for the road was closed. You would think we would learn with all the horror stories but not us. Turning around we had to drive out the way we came in. As we were driving this icy, empty wonderland we slowed down to see a little old lady outside with a hammer pounding at her mail box to open it up to get her mail. Well, we had a good laugh and I said, "She knows the mail will come its a promise from our postal service. And she is chipping away the frozen seal that is keeping her from it." Revelation moment!!!

Psalms 84:11 For the LORD God is a sun and a shield; the LORD bestows favor and honor; no good thing does he withhold from those whose walk is blameless

I had been experiencing quite and ice storm in my own life, feeling like my mail box had been sealed and I couldn't get to the messages God had been sending to me.My devotions felt forced. My spirit was dry and I was weary from feeling empty. I needed to be like the little old lady taking a hammer to my mailbox with a full knowledge that my promises had been delivered and I just need to get to them. I didn't start jumping up and down in any incantations, it was more of this quiet awe ha moment. I realized I had accepted the ice over my mailbox. In many things. Waiting on God is a good attitude but taking blows from the enemy while we are waiting is crazy. I was accepting the ice seals, I was letting the enemy bully me in areas with an attitude passiveness. Gross! How did that happen?! Slowly, with one trouble at a time until I was dry and drained of all fight.

Frozen Oklahoma, having an ice seal between me and my son and a little old lady with a hammer reminded me once again of His truth. Trusting God doesn't mean I have to keep being a punching bag for the enemy. For the LORD God is a sun and a shield; the LORD bestows favor and honor; no good thing does he withhold from those whose walk is blameless.

Through out the rest of my day all I kept thinking about was all the promises in my mail box, and seeing my son was one of them. I started praying for God to melt the ice, break it, remove the barriers. The Base never did open back up on Friday and as it stood, Ryley was to leave for Kentucky early Saturday morning and that would be it. The Lord is my SUN He was not going to withhold any good thing I was certain of it. We went back to our motel without coffee or lunch, but a new perspective. As we were settling into our motel room Ryley calls. " Hi mom, our flights have been canceled. I have a full day pass for 11 hours tomorrow."

The next day we picked him up and took him to Starbucks. It was open. Our God withhold no good things.:-) In fact Because of the ice storm we got to spend Sunday with him too before our flight left, which happened to be on schedule. Again, He withholds No Good thing!!!!

Oh, and we did find a great place to eat... The Cracker barrel.