Can Sports Thwart Our View of God?

I've been in sports for as long as I can remember. I had a golf club in my hand before a ball. In pre-school, I remember playing basketball with the boys. I opted for dodgeball on the elementary playground instead of the swings. I whipped the tetherball around with the tallest opponents. In junior high and high school, I competed in volleyball, basketball and track. From there, I've moved on to sand volleyball, tennis and I even won a state tournament in racquetball while pregnant with my first child. Sports bleeds through my veins. It makes my heart beat. I love to watch them, play them, talk about them, critique them and sometimes even dream about them.

Growing up, my brother worked on a golf course and we knew the manager of a small junior course in town. We would walk almost every day to the course to play and my dream was to ultimately become a LPGA golfer. To this day, I still consider that one of my most elusive dreams unfulfilled.

With sports and competition comes such a wide range of life lessons and personal growth opportunity. While competing in an individual sport taught me in confidence, focus and responsibility, team sports taught me teamwork, problem solving and trust. Some of the most cliche words I adopted into my daily life were hard work, motivation, determination...you name it. We're all familiar with it. And we're all very in tune with the idea that those words, when turned into action, have significant athletic payout. Get a trophy. Get a headline in the newspaper. Win a ring or two. Or six.

What we do athletically on and off the court, field or course largely determines our position on a team or in a particular ranking. I don't think I need to go into several different examples for you to acknowledge that point is true. But how does this relate to our relationship with Christ, as Christian athletes? I can't think of any examples off the top of my head where a sub-par athlete was awarded a position on the starting five because they perhaps spent extra time with an at-risk youth or donated a little bit more in the collection plate on Sunday than what was comfortable.

What I'm suggesting to you is that as athletes, we have been pre-programmed in a way to believe that our performance is what earns us competitive merit. And in sports, that's actually quite true. But what happens when we fail to separate that mindset with that which Christ have given us in our Christian lives? How does that ever-lingering Christian word of "grace" apply to our lives when everything we have been taught is that we gain better position based on performance? This is why I believe it's important for us as athletes, parents, fans, coaches, etc. who bear the name of Christ, to also exemplify grace in an athletic realm. Am I suggesting to throw the jersey on the team manager and see if he can pull off a game winning shot? Not at all. Moreover, I am simply suggesting that we need to be mindful that there is a separation in competitive learning tactics and that, when we compete for Christ and Him alone, this mindset naturally follows. If it doesn't, we are running into a danger of allowing sports to thwart our view of God.

For more reading on the importance of Competing for Christ, follow Compete4Christ on Facebook or read the in-depth blog at www.Compete4Christ.blogspot.com.