I love the Olympics. To me, there’s something really special about the world putting aside its differences for two weeks and each country sending its best athletes to compete. If you’re an athlete, there’s really no higher honor than having an Olympic medal—especially the gold—draped around your neck.
Athletes from all over the world work, prepare, and strive for three years and fifty weeks before converging on one location where everything they’ve done will come down to a few moments in time as they compete for the coveted gold medal and the title of Olympic Champion.
These athletes don’t wake up the week before the Olympic Games and decide to compete. They have spent the better part of their lives preparing for a few-minute shot at greatness. Take, for example, ladies’ figure skating and the long program. Years of preparation leads up to a mere four minutes on the ice. Years of preparation for a four-minute chance at glory.
I imagine there are times when even the best athletes wake up and think, “I don’t want to go to practice. I’d rather stay in bed.” Likewise, there must be times when they don’t feel well, or have other things they’d rather be doing. Yet the successful athlete learns to make training a priority. Those who don’t, don’t win the Olympics.
You and I would do equally well to make our spiritual training a priority—to be willing to put in the time training in anticipation of those times we’re going to be tested. In those times, we’ll have to rely on our training. But if we haven’t been training, we’ll have very little to rely on.
The “big” moments in our spiritual lives may not come often. Those moments or periods of time when we feel stretched to the limit may not happen every day. But we’d be wise to prepare for them. Otherwise, the times of testing or temptation will come, and we won’t be ready.
Have you ever thought about what you want to happen when the rubber meets the road? In other words, when your faith is tested, or you’re tempted, what do you want to happen? Do you want to wind up standing on the podium with a medal around your neck, or do you want to be disqualified in the first round?
Of course you don’t want to be disqualified, and neither do I. But failure to train properly may very well mean that when the hard times come, we fail. Yes, we can always fall back on God. He will never leave us nor forsake us. But it’s taking Him for granted in the worst way to ignore Him for four years and then expect Him to be there for us for our four-minute effort and to help us win.
What are you doing now to prepare for the trials that will come your way? Jesus guaranteed that we would face trials—every one of us. What are you doing now to be ready then?
1 Corinthians 9:27—But I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified.
