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Did anybody catch the brief segment on NBC last night about those who are losing sleep because of the late (or early) viewing hours for the Olympics? I was fascinated by one of the men NBC interviewed who testified to the effect that his loss of sleep wasn’t a sacrifice because he was getting to watch the Olympics.
Sounds a lot like David Livingstone’s address to students at Cambridge University in 1857:
For my own part, I have never ceased to rejoice that God has appointed me to such an office. People talk of the sacrifice I have made in spending so much of my life in Africa. Can that be called a sacrifice which is simply paid back as a small part of a great debt owing to our God, which we can never repay? Is that a sacrifice which brings its own blest reward in healthful activity, the consciousness of doing good, peace of mind, and a bright hope of a glorious destiny hereafter? Away with the word in such a view, and with such a thought! It is emphatically no sacrifice. Say rather it is a privilege. Anxiety, sickness, suffering, or danger, now and then, with a foregoing of the common conveniences and charities of this life, may make us pause, and cause the spirit to waver, and the soul to sink; but let this only be for a moment. All these are nothing when compared with the glory which shall be revealed in and for us. I never made a sacrifice. (Quoted in John Piper, Desiring God, 243. Italics author’s.)
The New York Times has a bubble map that indicates by size how many medals a particular country has won so far in the Olympics. On top of that, it also depicts the medal distribution for past summer Olympics dating back to the first official Games in 1896.
It’s pretty cool.
When I was a young pup, I watched the first Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie incessantly. In fact, I had many of the lines memorized (weird, huh?). Anyway, there was a Pizza Hut commercial at the beginning about a not-so-talented boy that stunned his teammates by catching a fly ball out in right field:
I say all this because I played in my second softball game of the season last night. Once again, I was confronted with my skinny-white-boy-ain’t-got-no-softball-skills status. My position? You guessed it. Right field.
But you know what? I’m glad I stink at softball. It can be a humbling gift from the Lord if I’ll receive it.
C.J. Mahaney writes as much in his book “Humility: True Greatness.” Although his humbling sport of choice is golf, I feel the counsel still applies:
“When you aren’t exploring the attributes of God, the doctrines of grace, and the doctrine of sin, try these surefire methods for cultivating humility and weakening pride. First, play golf as much as possible. Yep, golf. In my athletic experience, I don’t think there’s a more difficult or more humbling sport. Rather, make that humiliating — because if you play at all, you know all about those shots that result in laughter from your partners and humiliation for you. No one escapes them — not even Tiger Woods, and certainly not me.” (pg. 94)
What’s your favorite humbling sport?
