Running The Race To Win

If you have an hour to spare and don’t want to waste it watching rubbish, I heartily recommend you watch this documentary.

When I was growing up with my parents back in Wellingborough, I was fairly interested in athletics and the Olympics.  I have a vague recollection of the Los Angeles Olympics in 1984, I know I watched the Seoul Olympics in 1988 and then there was the Barcelona Olympics in 1992 which signalled the end of my interest in athletics and Olympics.

As London gets ready for the 2012 Olympics I know that my interest in it will be relatively low.  I might watch the football, but that will be about it.  Yet, despite that, what the documentary highlights is how fascinating some of the stories are behind the quest for gold.

Watching the stories of the lengths people will go to in the quest for gold and the consequences continues to remind me of the flaws of such an approach to life.  Sometimes the quest is not for gold but for personal glory.  When that desire is overwhelming then that is where compromises are made in life’s habits.  When it is personal glory then it’s no surprise that others are seen as people to step on to gain it.  When it is personal glory then it’s no surprise that sentiments like compassion and integrity are far less important in the larger scheme of things.

The quest for gold should be about attaining something pure and priceless.  It’s mockery then to become deformed and degraded in order to attain the pure and the priceless.  In the same way pursuing Christ is may well be about being single-minded and focussed, but it surely cannot be about doing it at the expense of other people’s lives.  It is to become that to which we aspire.  It has to be about the character being consumed by the gold that we hope one day to gain.

In Christ we attain the gold.  In Christ the blemishes that would disqualify us are cleansed and we are made right in God’s sight.  That should mean the race that we run is one done with the desire to see the gold shine though our attitudes and reactions.  That is not about being considerably better than anyone else.  It is about being considerably more like Christ.  Indeed this way we will enable others to likewise run their race.

Otherwise it can all end in tears where the race we run might see short terms acclaim, but ultimately bring grief, despair and the greatest loss.

For His Name’s Sake

Shalom

dmcd