Ice Skating, Water Polo and Humble Pie…
By Pastor Noah. Filed in Sermons |
Ah, leave it to modern sports to continue to give us endless illustrations of how to live well… or not in some cases. Going to bed last night, I thought, “I don’t know what I’ll blog on yet from my message last week.” After reading this morning’s news, it’s the Olympics to the rescue, they gave me just what I needed!
This one is golden (ok maybe just silver, depending on how you look at it…)
I was looking at the news events of the day – not the Olympic news, and a headline caught my eye, “Putin attacks Plushenko judging.” I wondered what the Russian Prime Minister was so hot about? Imagine a politician ranting about the judging of an Olympic sport! It turns out that the American beat the favored Russian. But what really caught my eye was the gracious words from the silver medalist Russian…
“You can’t be considered a true men’s champion without a quad,”
“For someone to stand on top of the podium with the gold medal around his neck by just doing triple jumps, to me it’s not progress, it’s a regress because we’ve done triples 10 or even 20 years ago,”
“Just doing nice transitions and being artistic is not enough because figure skating is a sport, not a show,”
“I was positive that I won. But I suppose Evan needs a medal more than I do,” Plushenko said through a translator. “Maybe it’s because I already have one…”
“Now it’s not men’s figure skating, now it’s dancing.” Plushenko said.
Hmm… I confess I didn’t watch the interviews (maybe he really was a gracious second place finisher), but the comments seem to underscore a less than complementary attitude. An attitude that is more concerned with “me” than others. I know it – I’ve had it.
When I was in High School I played water polo. I won the MVP award on the JV team. I went home and threw it at the wall and the arm broke off (I still have it in my garage somewhere, I now keep to remind me of the attitude). I was so upset because I didn’t get my varsity letter that year. I practiced with the varsity and played on the varsity team in most of the non-league and tournament games. I thought I DESERVED the letter. I was so angry that I was unable to enjoy the award I had gotten. Pride is a ruinous thing. I wonder if some people are unable to celebrate God’s gracious gift of salvation because it is ultimately about Him, and giving Him the thanks and praise He deserves, because in doing that, it takes the spotlight away from their focus on themselves? Or even serving others because then you can’t be serving yourself?
My prayer for us all this week is that we would embrace Philippians. 2:3 …”Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves.”