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Last week I began a series in answer to two questions very close to my heart: Why and how should a Christian pursue athletic greatness? Or how can I justify my drive to become the best athlete I can be?

We move on today to point number three: A Christian can joyfully pursue athletic greatness because such a pursuit can and should serve others.

In his book, God at Work, Gene Veith unpacks the Lutheran doctrine of vocation. One of his primary emphases throughout the book is Reformer Martin Luther’s emphasis upon the way in which God works through our works to bless His creation and bring glory to Himself. In looking at the Scriptures, Luther realized that the doctrine of vocation encompasses much more than what we are called to be and do in our various spheres of life. For it most importantly entails what God does in and through our vocations.

God heals, but He usually does so through doctors and nurses. God provides, but He usually does so through employers. God feeds, but He usually does so through farmers, truckers, bakers, and big, huge supermarket chains. God educates, but He usually does so through pastors and teachers. And on and on we can go. From a Christian perspective, God is actively blessing His creatures and creation through our various vocations. Therefore, whatever our calling may be, we are wise to understand how it serves and blesses others. In essence, we want to know how God is at work through us.

So how can the pursuit of athletic greatness serve others well? How is God at work in such a pursuit? I offer two points. Point one I will cover today. Point two will have to wait for tomorrow, because I just wrote it and it won’t fit.

1) By pursuing athletic greatness, God is blessing and you are serving those you compete with and against.

a) Regarding the ‘with’ in that statement, I can say that if you compete in a team environment, you can and should serve your teammates by pursuing excellence. For in a team game like basketball, you become your best corporately by highlighting the strength of every individual and putting them in positions to utilize their strengths for the good of the whole. When each player is pursuing greatness with the right mentality, he is pursuing it with an aim to team greatness. He doesn’t seek greatness in an individual vacuum, but in light of how he can best help his team to be the best they can be. This is a service. This is God at work.

b) Regarding the ‘against’ in my statement, I can say that whether you compete in a team or individual sport, your pursuit of athletic greatness obviously serves your opponent(s). For when you seek to be the best you can be, you force your opponent to do the same. Competition at its heart is a cooperation, whether you like your opponent or not. For when you get together to seek victory, you cannot help but do all you can to force your opponent to play their best. You force them to see what they are really made of. You seek to highlight their every weakness as they seek to maximize their every strength, and vice versa. Such an endeavor is a service, whether you realize it or not. And God is at work in the process by blessing the individuals involved with the joy of the challenge, the sweet opportunity of seeing how good they really are and how far they have to go to become as good as they want to be.

The cooperative nature of competition is no doubt a primary reason why competitors often feel a certain admiration and love for the opponents who push them the most. People who don’t compete very much may have a hard time understanding how competitors (when at their best) can do their absolute best to beat one another (in whatever the sport), only to shake hands and exchange a sportsmanlike half-hug and back tap after the fight. But this explains why such a connection exists. For every competitor in pursuit of excellence appreciates the one who pushes them to become their best. Most can’t explain it, but they know instinctively that their opponent is not really their enemy at all, but their friend. For without their help, they cannot become the best they can be. Apart from their service, they cannot really pursue their own excellence.

As I type these words, I cannot help but reflect upon my most enjoyable competitive connections. The first two that come to mind are the connections I enjoy with my brother, Jon, and good friend, Bobby Fisicaro. I suspect I think upon these connections first because I have probably competed against Jon and Bobby more than any other basketball players, though Bobby naturally takes second place. Not only that, but we competed against one another consistently, in a controlled environment, during each of our most definitive times of athletic development.

While in late High School and College, we played one-on-one almost daily during the summertime (for too many hours in hindsight) Indeed, we played so much and so long that we got to know one another’s games almost perfectly well. We knew every move each other would make and designed our drills and games for maximum exposure and improvement. We competed with whole hearts and in so doing, pushed one another to become better and better. Considering my own pursuit of excellence, I cannot help but give great thanks for these two. Though they are my friends in life, I believe they are even better friends in life now because of the relationships we developed in the pursuit of athletic excellence. Though we did not realize it at the time, God was working through us, blessing us as we served one another.

And so it can and should be for all of us as competitors. Service is central whether we realize it or not. God is at work in our pursuit. Therefore, we cannot help but pursue athletic excellence with joy.

Yesterday I made my first point in answer to the questions: Why and how should a Christian pursue athletic greatness? Or how can I justify my drive to become the best athlete I can be?

I said that in order to understand and appreciate sport and competition in Biblical perspective, we must understand the storyline of the Bible: Creation, Fall, Redemption. And that when we look carefully at the first of those three (creation), we find that sport does indeed fit into the very good of God’s original design.

Today we move on to point number two: A Christian can joyfully pursue athletic greatness because such a pursuit can and should honor God.

As you might already anticipate, this point runs in the same vein as point number one. In fact, in commenting on Genesis 1-2 yesterday, I said, “As man was a part of the created order himself, his calling to develop the earth’s potential included developing his own potential, including His potential to create and participate in sport.”

Before I wrote those words I said that a good gardener doesn’t cruise through his work in order to maintain the garden status quo, but instead, does all he can (within certain limits which I will comment upon later) to maximize the beauty and potential for growth within that garden. Well, the athlete can rightfully consider himself part of his own garden. And in light of God’s original design and command, he (or she) can rightfully and joyfully do all he can to maximize his own potential for his highest joy, the joy of others, and the glory of God. He can, with the help of others and in the midst of God-given opportunities, seek to understand and improve upon his natural abilities and desires in order to become the best athlete he can be. And he can do so in confidence that God’s delights to bless such an endeavor.

As I write these words, I think of the many well-meaning Christians who will become nervous with such thoughts. Faithful as such thoughts may be to the Scriptures, the pursuit of excellence (in various walks of life, including athletics) is something many Christians shy away from. And in a sense, I understand why. For we know that within the storyline of the Bible, there is the Fall, and thus, the corruption of man and his every good endeavor. We know from experience itself that the pursuit of excellence is, more often than not, a good we pursue to our own destruction.

That being said, I believe that however well-meaning we may be, it is wrong for us to view the pursuit of excellence as evil in and of itself. Or even to shy away from it because of its dangers. No doubt, we should be careful, but we should be careful not by sitting out of the race, but by diligently running it well. In fact, I believe that if we shy away from the pursuit of excellence because we are scared of sinning ourselves, we sin in a different fashion, as we show a lack of confidence in the person and work of Jesus Christ and a lack of zeal to honor the Lord with the gifts and opportunities He has given us. Crazy as it may sound to some, I believe that if we are to sin (for from a Christian perspective, we will sin either way), we are better off sinning as we seek to honor the Lord fully with our gifts. Holding back helps no one at all.

Yes, I realize that many a man has pursued athletic excellence to the ruin of his own soul, his own family, and even the good of his community. But that doesn’t mean that the pursuit itself is a wrong one. It is just a good pursuit out of control. It is a good pursuit fashioned into an ultimate pursuit. So rather than tell Christians to shy away from such a pursuit, I say such failures are all the more reason to pursue greatness ourselves. After all, if we can not pursue excellence in sports (or whatever your station in life) to the glory of God, then who can? If we will not seek to become the best we can be in a way that blesses others and honors the Lord, then who will?

I am probably getting a bit ahead of myself here, but in light of God’s original design and in light of what Jesus Christ has done, the Christian (if he so desires) ought to joyfully pursue athletic excellence in confidence that however imperfect his pursuit may be, the Lord is honored as he hopes in Christ. I am seeking to be such a man. And I am, without doubt, a very imperfect one. But I tend to think that the sports world would be much better off with athletes of all ages and genders who believe such truth and seek to honor the Lord by becoming the very best they can be.

My hope is that the Christian church will one day fully share such a perspective.