As competitive as I am I am not competitive enough to compete at world class levels even if my body was willing and able. I know that because I have seen what sports requires of its athletes at that level. I do not have the willingness to make the necessary sacrifices between now and then. Does this lack of self centeredness extend into other areas of my life? Do others suffer from the same constraint?
BBC Sport highlights some of the more obscure sports on any given Sunday. Yesterday’s program included the indoor rowing championships. As I tuned in I was expected a indoor stadium with at least two rowing lanes. Obviously it had to be large. I couldn’t figure out how they were going to normalize the conditions for those participating. Imagine my reaction when I discovered that the competition was going to be a hundred or so rowing machines hooked up to a common computer! No boats. No water. No competition that were one on one; it was just exercise machines and sweating young men.
In the middle of this “interesting” program there was an interesting interview with one of the top competitors. His observation was amazing. Paraphrased it went something like this.
“Why is this competition important?”
“One needs to take stock. If you don’t the days will slip away and the competition will be here. Nine months isn’t very long.”
Sacrifice, training, and lost opportunity to play. Each element runs eight hours a day, six or seven days a week, day in and day out.
Life is difficult, often terrible, and frequently ugly. Is “I” more important than “we” are? Combined the two statements and you have the dilemma for each moment. Who is the “we”? Is “we” an exploited one and “I” or Divinity’s family including you and me?
Promises have context. Divinity says, “I'll make up for the years of the locust, the great locust devastation—locusts savage, locusts deadly, fierce locusts, locusts of doom, that great locust invasion I sent your way”? (Joel 2.25) Then versus now.
