This past Thursday, Friday, and Saturday was our annual basketball tournament that our school hosts. It is three days filled with about 12 hours of basketball each day. I watched 24 basketball games in those three days. I watched teams on all different talent levels. I watched players on all different talent levels. I watched coaches and how they handled their teams. I listened to fans. Some were louder than others. Some were louder for their team than others, and some were louder at the referees than others. But as I sat and observed these things, I saw one thing that kept coming back to me that they all had in common. They were all competing. They were competing for something bigger than just themselves. They were all competing for something they believed in. Players can be motivated by different things. They may have different reasons for competing for different things. They may have been competing for their school or community. They may have been competing for their coach. It may have been for their parents or their teammates. Whatever the reason, it was because they wanted to win and they wanted to win for a reason, or maybe a lot of reasons. Perhaps it is just because they don’t like losing. Whatever the case, they competed and played hard to win. The coaches compete and want to win for their players. They also want to win for their school and community. Most coaches played sports and developed a competitive drive during that time. Parents want their children to be successful. They want their child’s school to be successful. They want their community to have things to be proud of. All of these are great reasons to compete. The bottom line is they were doing everything they could to be better than the person on the other side of the gym. It was emotional at times. It got intense at times. There are so many good things to be taken out of sports. There are so many things that sports, or any activity that kids compete in, teach our kids. It teaches them how to win gracefully. It teaches them how to lose gracefully. It teaches them how to be part of a team. It teaches them how to overcome adversity. Good healthy competition is a great thing. It is so fun to watch teams compete against one another because there are so many variables that go into it. But in the end, they all have the same goal. To win!
In life as adults we compete too. We compete at work. We want to be the best employee we can be. We want people to take notice of the job we do. We compete at a lot of things as adults. Sometimes we compete in sports even though we are past our prime. That can also lead to competing with age and getting out of bed the next morning. I guess I thought I would stay young forever. But I told my wife the other day that I am starting to see signs of getting older for the first time. My body says that I am getting older but my mind doesn’t. So that is the problem I have. When I am involved in anything dealing with sports I will still try and go the same speed that I went when I was 18. Now I realize that is a completely different gear than it was over 20 years ago. But, in the moment, I still feel like Michael Jordan or Bo Jackson. It isn’t until a few hours after the fact, or even more the next morning or two, that I realize that Bo and Michael were Bo and Michael for a reason and I am not, nor was I ever. I don’t just get out of bed on those mornings anymore. I literally roll out of bed on those mornings now. The reason being that I am too sore to actually sit up and get out of bed like normal. Then I limp into the bathroom. The only problem is I’m not sure which leg to limp on because they both hurt so bad. So it’s more of a waddle. But anyhow, after several days goes by I get better and by the time the next opportunity rolls around for sporting competition, I forget how bad the last time was. I then repeat the process. The only problem is that now I am older than the last time. The good about it is that it helps keep that competitive spirit alive. I think everyone needs that competitiveness at times. I will discuss why in just a little bit.
We also as adults have unhealthy competition sometimes. It’s like the saying goes, “keeping up with the Jones'”. We get caught up sometimes into thinking as adults that we have to keep up with those around us. We have to have the same things that they have. We have to do the same things they do. We feel like if we don’t people will think differently about us. We feel like people will look down on us if we don’t have or do those things. But in reality that shouldn’t be our motivation. We shouldn’t think that way. Unfortunately, we do though. We get caught up in it. We feel like we have to keep up. If someone looks down on us for things like that, they have an issue not us. We shouldn’t ever feel like we have to keep up with anyone. Possessions and status should not ever be a competition. It is hard not to do though. It is hard not to want to outdo others. We have a society that tells us we need to. Society tells us that it will improve our life. It will make us more popular. It will make us more relative with those around us. It will improve our status. There are so many things that society and the world tell us will happen if we work hard to achieve these things. While there is absolutely nothing wrong with having these things in our life, that should not be our competition as adults.
Our main competition as adults should be with ourselves. We should compete each day to be more Christlike. We should compete with ourselves to improve on that each day. I have talked about in earlier post that this new year my goal is about being better. That is what this is about. It is about being a better Christian every day. Make today more Christlike than yesterday. I feel like all that competition in the previous years can help prepare us for this competition. Do we work as hard at being more Christlike as we do at our status. Do we compete at the Christian life as hard as we did when we played sports? Do we compete as hard at making sure people see Jesus through us as we do competing with the other fans at our kids’ sporting events? I know sometimes I don’t. Sometimes I get so caught up in the world’s competitions that I lose sight of the competition I should have within myself to be a better Christian daily.
I remember in high school there was a group of guys and all we wanted to do was play baseball. We worked hard at it. When we had free time we were working on it. We went and hit. We went and played catch. If we didn’t have someone else to go with us, which was rare, we went by ourselves. We had a burning desire to be the best we could be. We didn’t win every game, but we had prepared hard enough that we thought we would. We had ups and downs and we worked hard to bounce back from the downs. We didn’t want anyone else to get the best of us. We didn’t want anyone to say they outplayed or outworked us. We didn’t want to give them the satisfaction of beating us. We worked hard as individuals and as a team. What we did as individuals just made us better as a team. We were determined not to let anyone stand in our way of achieving our ultimate goal which was to win a State Championship. We played fall and spring baseball since we didn’t play football. So in my 4 years of HS baseball we played 8 seasons. We made the State Tournament 6 of those 8 seasons. The problem for us was that the first 5 times we made it there, it ended in defeat either in the first or second round. Our senior year we were more determined than ever. We realized that this was it. We wouldn’t have another chance after this one. We made it to the finals that year which was something we hadn’t ever done. This group hadn’t won their first two games before. I remember it like it was yesterday. That Saturday afternoon we were finally crowned State Champions!!! What a feeling it was. We had reached the pinnacle of class B baseball in Oklahoma. We finished on top. All that individual work and team work we had put in paid off. We had reached our goal. I think of that as being like life. We work as individuals and together as Christians to reach our ultimate goal which is to hear those words, “Well done, thy good and faithful servant” and lead others there too. As a HS baseball player that was what I focused a lot of my time and energy on. As an adult, that focus and determination has shifted to being more Christlike. Just like the first 5 times we made the State Tournament, there will be ups and downs in life. We just have to keep working hard to be the best we can be and work hard to make those around us better as well.
Here’s another question to ponder. Do we work as hard at competing against satan every day as we do that other person at work or that neighbor we have on our block who has that brand new vehicle? All of these things, if given too much of our attention can consume our lives. Don’t get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with working on moving up in your job. There is nothing wrong with having a new vehicle or having the best yard on the block, or going on vacations. These things are great. But if they begin to take over our lives and be our main focus we have lost focus of what should be important in our lives. I hope that I work as hard as an adult to conquer satan as I did trying to conquer HS baseball opponents. I hope that I work individually and with other Christians to make this world a better place.
I challenge everyone this week to examine our lives. See where our competition lies. See if we are competing to overcome satan or the neighbors. Which are we more concerned with? Are we competing internally to be a better Christian today than we were yesterday? Are we going to compete with ourselves when we wake up in the morning to be more Christlike than we were yesterday? There comes a point in life when we can’t compete at some things anymore. There will come a time when you can’t play baseball or basketball competitively anymore. There will come a time when we can’t show animals anymore or compete in music contest anymore. All of those things will end. But, just as all those teams competed this weekend in our tournament, those things if used in the right way can prepare us to have that competitive drive to be the best Christian we can be. It can prepare us to compete with ourselves to be better than we were the day before. Those kids this week laid it all on the line for something they believed in. The believed in their team, coaches, school, community, parents, or whatever else it may have been. Are we willing to lay it all on the line for a God we truly believe in? My prayer for everyone is that competitive desire to be Christlike never goes away and that everyday when we wake up we compete to be better than the day before! We compete to win the Christian life!