In The Game
I like to both play and watch basketball and football but I wouldn’t call myself a fanatic of either sport. However, living in a city with some pretty big ball clubs, there are many fanatics around me. Some are so die-hard, they would do whatever it takes, and spend whatever it costs to see their team play. For those who don’t have the money, their conversations are simply consumed with the current happenings of their team.
Recently, the Houston Astros made it to the world series and came very close to becoming the 2019 MLB champions. After a nail-biting sixth game, the Astros and the Washington Nationals were tied at 3-3, which forced a game 7. At first, game 7 seemed to be in favor of the Astros as they led 2-0. After the fifth inning, the tables turned so dramatically that the Nationals ended up taking the win and going home with the trophy. The Astros fans were devastated.
PROBLEM
The following morning, as I walked my kids to their classrooms, all I heard from parents in the hallway were disgruntled mumblings trying to rationalize the Astros’ loss. “His arm was too tired,” I heard one parent say. “They needed better coaching,” another exclaimed. Like several unofficial coaches passing by as I walked the hall, these parents apparently would’ve all won the game if they had been the ones coaching. It was as if talking about what they would’ve done somehow made them feel better about the loss. However, speculation is never a good substitute for participation. None of these people had participated in one game. None had ever trained; none had played through the entire season; none had sacrificed for the team. They were all just commenting spectators.
SPECTATORS
Over the past fifteen years, it’s gotten easier to sit back and watch others live their lives from a personal place of seclusion. With the invention of endless scrolling, we’ve wasted many human hours just observing the filtered lives of others. While the age of social media has been amazing for networking, it has given us license to cast judgment on others based on the content of their profile. Much like commenting on a game lost that we didn’t participate in, it’s much easier to criticize those around us, than it is to enter the “game” of life ourselves, and face our own shortcomings. However, it is the steady discipline of a consecrated life that moves us from spectatorship to participation. We must determine the race we’ve been meant to run, and run with all our might.
SOLUTION
2 Timothy 2:4-7 says “A soldier refrains from entangling himself in civilian affairs, in order to please the one who enlisted him. Likewise, a competitor does not receive the crown unless he competes according to the rules. The hardworking farmer should be the first to partake of the crops. Consider what I am saying, for the Lord will give you insight into all things.”
Paul is telling Timothy not to worry about what everyone else is doing, but to focus on competing for himself. When we stop living life in spite of, or in competition with others, but live with the intention of receiving the prize God has for us, we begin to live worthy of the call God has placed within us.
THE MAN IN THE ARENA
A famous poem called The Man In The Arena, by Teddy Roosevelt, beautifully sums up the idea of running your own race.
"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.” - Theodore Roosevelt (The Man in The Arena 1910)
CONCLUSION
Don’t spend your life evaluating the shortcomings or successes of others. Rather, run your own race, succeed or fail for yourself. Many failures can occur on the pathway to success. Never give up. Strive to not only receive the earthly prize God has for you, but the eternal prize as well.