Get Back Up Again!
I am an avid sports fan. I’ve had a passionate love affair with sports since grade school. I have always admired the hard work, determination, and perseverance of the mighty athlete who has dedicated his or her live to perfecting and mastering the skills needed to dominate in their sport and achieve great feats! Awww…the game!
There’s so much about sports, and the discipline you learn while playing sports that can be applied to our everyday lives. If you are like me and you’ve never participated in organized sports, it doesn’t hinder you from using “sport wisdom” to face challenges within your life.
Whether it’s the idea that hard work pays off or that we can’t always “win” them—there is always a golden nugget of wisdom found within the confines of the game. For example: While watching 2016 Olympics, the 10,000-meter distance competition caught my attention. A long distance track competition isn’t my idea of sports entertainment, but the promotional piece piqued my interest. It highlighted two runners competing who trained together and became close friends-one of them being Mo Farrah. Mo was the three-time gold Medalist, the overwhelming favorite to win. I found Mo’s strategy at the beginning of the race interesting. He started at the back of the pack and was dead last for the first ten laps of the twenty-five lap race. Just as he was hitting his stride and heading to the front in the congested race pack, he collides with the runner in front of him, and tumbles to the ground. Another runner leaps over him and continues his race.
There are two important lessons from Mo’s fall.
- First, a fall in life is inevitable. Proverbs 24:16 reminds us that, “For a righteous man falls seven times, and rises again but the wicked stumble in time of calamity.” Take comfort. God has a way of using a stumble in our lives as a stepping stones to our destiny. However, we can only understand the purpose of the fall if we get back up and see the race to the end.
- Second, be wise in choosing your running mates. There are moments in our lives when we fall in a crowd of people all running the same race and moving in the same direction but we cause our brother to stumble. Corinthians 10:32-33 says, “Do not cause anyone to stumble, whether Jews, Greeks or the church of God— even as I try to please everyone in every way. For I am not seeking my own good but the good of many, so that they may be saved.” We are reminded that we must run our race not just for ourselves but for the good of many that Christ, in our running, may be glorified.
If you fall, stumble, trip, get up as Mo did. One of the key lessons successful athletes learn, is to be resilient and get back up. A set back is not a lose. It should surge you forward toward the finishing line. In our lives we face setbacks, but get back up! Let the lessons of today lurch you toward the success of tomorrow. Mo got up and continued the race. He won the gold too!
-Tori Dixon
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