For most of my years as a Pastor, I was always in a hurry, pushing to get as much done in a day as possible. I have been obsessed with accomplishing as much with my life as I could before I stood before Jesus at the “Judgment Seat of Christ,” gave an account to Him for my life, and was rewarded for what I had done with my life for Him. It wasn’t necessarily an obsession motivated by fear, but similar to what an athlete would go through in his quest to win the Olympic gold medal. The verses that described me best were 1 Corinthians 9:24-27, “Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but only one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may win. Everyone who competes in the games exercises self-control in all things. They then do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. Therefore, I run in such a way as not without aim; I box in such a way as not beating the air; but I discipline my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified.”
Sam, our son, his family, Patty, and I went to a movie on Christmas Day. The name of it was “The Boys in a Boat.” It was the story of eight young men struggling financially to make it through college at the University of Washington during the Great Depression in the 1930s. They turned out for tryouts to make the rowing team for an eight-man crew because of the offer to get a college scholarship. The story is about the work they put in once they made the team in an effort to win the Olympic Gold during the 1936 Munich Olympics. It was a very inspirational story of the power of the desire to win. I just about tore the arms off the theater chairs as I attempted to help them win in the races during the movie. When I was younger, I would get down and depressed when things weren’t going well in the church, and I felt like quitting and giving up. I would rent all of the “Rockie” movies, watch them all in one sitting, and get all jazzed up again. The desire to win is a God-given desire, and when it doesn’t get contaminated with selfish pride, it is an incredible motivation and power to accomplish great things with our life for God.
One of the sad things for me now is that the emotional drive I had in my 20s through my 60s to win in life is mostly gone now. I still have an intellectual understanding of what I need to do, but it is so much harder to get motivated to do it than it used to be. Now, I do what I am supposed to do and what I believe God wants me to do, but I do it much, much slower.