God created games for our enjoyment! But games, by their very nature, necessarily entail a winner and a loser. So to play a game as God intends one must seek through their best efforts to win the game. Nevertheless “winning” and “giving your best” are not synonymous. I’m sure you can recall many times you have won and not given your best, as well as, those times you gave it everything you got and came up just a little short. There is a certain truth to the saying, “It doesn’t matter whether you win or lose, but how you play the game.” Yet, if the “how” loses sight of the intent to win through ones best efforts it has ceased to be the proper “how”. To often this saying is used to protect our egos in the event that we lose, or it is set forth to fence out failure. If one wants to play a game as God intended then one must seek through their best efforts to play to win.
For the elite athlete and especially for the professional one, winning is essential for advancing to the next level, or for that matter, getting paid. If you’re not winning, it is doubtful that you will be around for very long – coach or player. Here the Christian Athlete must be on guard so as not to succumb to the “win at all cost” mentality. We witness this daily in the world of sports where athletes will resort to cheating (corked bats, deflated footballs, HGH, etc…) to try and secure the victory. This is not the Christian way, there are no short cuts to victory as we witnessed with the cross of Christ. Simply put, the goal for the Christian athlete is to win through their best efforts within the given rules of game.
There are three different competitions going on simultaneously within sporting event for the Christian Athlete. These competitions are distinct, yet bound up together within the activity itself. The first and most immediate level of competing is against ones opponent. Lincoln Harvey, in his recent book, A Brief Theology of Sport, has contended that there is a unique movement when two competitors come together that expresses and displays something essential to the very nature of existence – our contingency. For him “only together –as com-petitors – can they be strung together between life-with God and nothing-with-nothingness.” This highlights the truth of our existence in each moment, either we are embracing life with God through Jesus Christ by faith, or its opposite – grasping for nothingness. These are the only two options available to us as contingent beings. The opposite of God is not the devil, sin, or death (we all die), but nothingness. This is what is meant when we contend that God is “the All in all”. There is God and then there is nothing else; absolutely nothing exists apart from God. So when one turns away from God they literally turn into “nothingness”.
In and through competition, Harvey suggests, “winners will face life, the triumphant movement out of the possibility of non-being through our obedient response to the gracious summons to exist. The losers – simultaneously – will face the nothingness from which we are summoned.” In other words, in thrill of victory we taste the triumphant glory of God’s goodness, while through the agony of defeat we are reminded of the brokenness of our existence and our need for grace. Neither comes at the expense of the other, for whether you win or lose you are living in a graced moment facing the truth of our existence with God – our possibilities and our limits. Even when we find ourselves on the losing side, with eyes to see and ears to hear, we perceive – experience- the living God in all his gracious beauty and goodness. So when opponents compete against one another they are actually creating sacred space for the possibility of partaking in the divine life.
The second level of competition that arises within a sporting activity is the competition we have with ourselves. I believe all great athletes eventually come to understand that when we compete we are ultimately competing no so much against a given opponent, but ourselves. The great Russian dancer, Mikhail Baryshnikov, captured it with this statement, “I do not try to dance better than anyone else. I only try to dance better than myself.” I have suggested that the Christian athlete’s offering to God consist in striving to become the best they can at their given sport. Competition has the tendency to reveal answers to question such as: Have I been seeking to become the best I can be? Did I give my best? Was I competitive? Competitions are reality checks. They can reveal the level of our commitment, the quality of practice and preparation, the state of our mindset, as well as, the nature of our character. In addition to testing ourselves, competitions can become the culmination of the offering to God. It’s a moment wherein we gather up all the preparation and effort – the honing of skills – and put it on display before God and others. A thanksgiving offering offered in response to gifts of God given.
The third level of competition that is taking place within the game is the most important one of all. It’s integrally tied up with first two levels I have mentioned. We can think of them as the means through which this “ultimate competition” becomes a reality. When the Christian competes within a given sport – against an opponent and themselves – the Christian is competing to win God. In seeking to become the best one can be at a given sport – competing – they are striving simultaneously to become a partaker of the divine life of God. As I state on the introductory page of the blog, The Christian life is the ultimate competition – the “game” we play is matter of life or death. The medal, the championship, the ring, the trophy, the “crown” we compete for is eternal life, or more specifically, life with God.
We are very good at compartmentalization. As friend of mine put it, “we have the tendency to leave God in the car when we get to the field and the only time we ask him to get out is when we find ourselves in a predicament.” I think we do this partly because our prideful nature seeks the glory that can arise within the moment. Also, I think we do this because the “church” has failed to teach us how to see all of life as arena for God’s presence. Let’s not be fooled, God is present whether we acknowledge him or not. I believe the key for the Christian athlete to overcome our tendency to compartmentalize is by seeing and approaching their sport from the perspective of a “thanksgiving offering” as outlined in previous posts. Just like our skills and mindsets, this Christian approach must be trained.