3. AIM CLEARLY (vs. 26)

            Paul says, “I run in such a way as not without aim.”  I saw a lady in a track meet win her race by several yards but be disqualified because she ran out of her lane for a period.  It is too easy to be distracted, to be unclear about what really matters, to miss the importance of commitment and sacrifice, or to forget that trying too many things is at least as bad in its outcome as trying too few things.  These kinds of things disqualify too many.  Aim means the eliminating of everything but the objective of your aim.  Are there a few things at which you are aiming?  What strategy are you employing to reach them?  Is your aim and strategy in writing? (It should be.)  Is it clear and really important to you? (It should be.)  How about to others?  To try too little is to guarantee a small outcome. To try everything is to guarantee that you will do nothing well.  Aim in order to win.

4. GIVE UP THE RIGHT TO FEEL GOOD IN THE SHORT TERM (vs. 27)

            It’s a sad part of the human condition that we let happiness matter more to us than winning.  Look at the face of the man who scores the winning touchdown.  Happy?  You bet.  Look at that same face when he’s been at practice for two hours in the hot sun and his coach is in his face yelling at him.  Happy?  Not at all.  Yet without paying the price of seemingly thankless preparation, he would not have won.  All the most important things in life require not just self-discipline but self-sacrifice.  That’s the point of verse 27.  Want a great marriage when you’re 60?  Self-sacrifice will be required now.  Want great kids when they’re 35?  More self-sacrifice.  Want great standing when you retire among your peers?  More self-sacrifice.  You have to be prepared to sacrifice good feelings, relaxation, and contentment in the present to be able to win at something in the future.  Nobody gets to the Promised Land on an escalator.  Everybody has to walk over sharp rocks at times.  Part of getting there is being willing to pay that price.

            I hope this helps in your developing a winning strategy.

In a sermon a few weeks ago I made the offhand remark that parents should teach their children to win with grace and lose with faith.  Elizabeth Gibbons’ thoughtfully asked through e-mail, “I understand winning with grace, but how can we lose with faith?”  This is a great question for us all, and I want to spend the next several columns fleshing out my too brief e-mail answer to Elizabeth’s question.  So thanks, Elizabeth, for listening critically and asking a really helpful question.  In the next several blogs I will cover:

1. Winning with Grace         
2. Having a desire to win
3. Having a worthwhile goal
4. Developing a strategy for winning
5. Taking responsibility with gratitude
6. Losing with Faith
7. Things worth losing
8. Possessing the faith to learn from a loss
9. Winners lose without becoming losers

             Our text for these blogs will be I Corinthians 9:24, “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.”  This verse is not just about winning at sports but about the importance at winning at life and, in particular, winning at the Christian life. 

 WIN WITH GRACE BY HAVING THE DESIRE TO WIN

            One of my favorite questions to ask ministers in interviews is, “How competitive are you?”  I enjoy asking the question because only about two in a hundred are comfortable with whatever answer they give.  What I’d love to hear is, “I’m competitive.  I like to win.”  Most of them are apologetic about wanting to win, even if they do, as if the desire to win were some kind of a character flaw.  God speaks to us through Paul and makes it clear that Christians are to develop the desire and ability to win at whatever game they enter. 

             Look at 1 Corinthians 9:24 again.  Obviously, running is a command which means it is neither natural nor universal to do so.  You must choose both to enter the race and to run.  It also means that in the games you enter, you are to expend all the energy and effort you have in order to try to win.  For the Christian life, he is saying, “Don’t just get in the race to get a T-shirt, get in to win.”  Today because so many people want everyone to feel affirmed we diminish the importance of winning so no one will feel like a loser when they don’t win.  According to this passage of Scripture, anyone who takes winning casually at marriage, church, school, business, friendship, or following Christ is destined to lose.  We will see in a later column that this doesn’t mean you have to win, but it does mean you must run in order to win. 

             So, do you want to win with grace?  That’s the first step – wanting to.  If you just want to be in the game or if you want someone else to do the hard work and the heavy lifting, stop right now and ask God to give you the desire to run the races in your life in order to win.

A few weeks ago, I spoke of fear of the Lord (See Fearless Sermon Series).  I made brief mention that parents should not use God as the heavy club in the discipline of children.  It is a wonderful thing to teach your children to honor God and even to fear God, but it has been delegated to you to discipline your children.  So don’t try to delegate that back up to God by saying things to your children such as, “God is not happy with you” or “God sees what you’re doing” or “God is going to get you in ways you cannot imagine.”  Simply take the authority of disapproval yourself by saying, “I don’t like that,” or “I told you to do that.”  Take the responsibility yourself for confronting your child rather than “playing the God card.”  Later on when it does not involve a present problem, talk with your children about God’s will for them. Teach them that you love God’s will and they can too.

             When you make God out to be a nitpicker or one who doesn’t ever cut us any slack, you really paint a God who is different than God’s revelation of Himself.  Let’s be sure to be honest with our children about the grace, love, kindness, and mercy of God while at the same time holding up the holy and righteous standards of God for life.  I hope as you raise your children to fear the Lord, it’s the beginning of wisdom, and they will NEVER be wise unless they do.  But make sure they are confident that the Lord they fear is full of love and mercy for them.

        I was asked by a young adult in our church if you actually could love your wife like Christ loved the church.  I said to him, “I am happy to report that you can. The Lord has taught me how, but let me be sure you understand it’s the third stage I’ve passed through in relating to my wife.”  In my opinion, the three stages of love in marriage are:  the power struggle, self-interested kindness, and submission.

             The first level – the POWER STRUGGLE – needs little explanation.  It starts with what I like, what I want to do, what I need.  If you get in the way of those things, we’re going to have a problem.  It may have to do with what you do on your day off, what hobby you pursue, what you like to do for each other, when you are available to each other, or how you settle conflict.  The family that is in a power struggle is a family in which neither side has much regard for what the other wants.  Their primary interest is in what they want.  Marriages that remain in a power struggle for too long probably won’t make it.  It is important for a man and his wife to both move out of the power struggle as soon as possible.  It may be a help to remember what the Scripture says:  “Submit yourselves one to the other in the fear of Christ” Eph. 5:21.  Only mutual submission can solve the problems of the power struggle

             The second level is where a lot of families live that only manage to stay married but never really spend much time in real happiness. I call it SELF-INTERESTED KINDNESS.  This means you are kind to each other, but the reason you’re kind to each other is that you believe if mama ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy or if papa ain’t happy ain’t nobody happy.  So the reason you do things for each other is because you want them to be happy enough so that you are happy enough.  Again, the calculation is what do I have to do to get my needs met?  The difference between the first and the second level of relationship has to do with experience.  Most people learn that if you are highly driven to get your way all the time, you either have to marry a person who has very little spine or you have to learn to demand less.  Otherwise, both of you are unhappy most of the time.

             The third level is SUBMISSION.  Submission is a word people don’t like much.  It implies to them you have no mind of your own and you don’t get to make any decisions.  You are powerless.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  We are told to submit ourselves one to another as to the Lord in Ephesians 5:21.  Does the Lord let you make decisions?  Absolutely.  Does He grant you freedom?  Of course.  Does He treat you with respect?  Yes, He does.  Yet, He is the Lord.  It is the same in our relationship with each other.  Submission is not about yielding all power.  It is about considering others before yourself.  Submission is really about trust.  It says I trust you and God enough so that I’m willing to do what you want to do against my own sense of self-interest because I think it’s best for you – period.  In truth, this is by far the most joyful and rewarding level of relationship in marriage or in any relationship.  When you are constantly fighting for your own position and the other person is constantly fighting for theirs, it’s a never ending battle and no one is satisfied.  When the nice face you present is the product of a calculation (how nice do I have to be to get what I want), it looks – but doesn’t feel – like love. When you are in the third level and are submissive to your wife and your wife is submissive to you, this doesn’t mean the husband isn’t the leader of the home.  It just means that his primary desire is the satisfaction and wellbeing of his wife and children. 

             I have found as I have gotten better at this third level of relationship, I feel much more power and I have much more authority than I did when I was engaged in the power struggle, and my home is, above all others, my favorite place to be.

             While I was in his home the week before, I recorded a 15-minute interview with Bob in which I talked with him about his worldview and about the faith that enabled him to live for four years with someone whose values were completely different from his.  On November 29^th I’m going to preach a very unusual sermon.  I will be sharing my personal testimony and interspersing the testimony with Bob’s testimony now preserved on DVD.  Many of you have expressed the feeling that you knew him and yet don’t know what he looked like.  That will be handled on Sunday morning at both services on November 29^th. 

If you have a college or high school student in your home, I would strongly urge you to bring them and let them hear from this man who had the maturity of faith at 18 to be a major influence in my life.

             God’s grace is astounding to me, and the further along I move in live, the more astounding it becomes.  His arrangement of our being roommates was one of the many acts of grace He did in my life prior to my becoming a Christian.  I am grateful to God for all He did for so many years and look forward to expressing it on Sunday morning, November 29^th.

            My dad was a wise man of few words (yes, Mr./Ms. Smarty.  My mother was a talker.  That answers that genetic question.)  I remember a conversation with him about a new thoracic surgeon named Nelson Kraft, who had just arrived in Tallahassee.  He talked about what a great surgeon he was and how fortunate we were to have him in Tallahassee.  I said, “Dad, what makes one surgeon better than another?”  He said, “What do you think?”  I said, “Small hands?”  He said, “No.”  “Dexterity?”  “No.”  “Sharp eye?”  “No.”  He said, “THE MARK OF A GREAT SURGEON IS KNOWING WHEN NOT TO OPERATE.” 

            Going forward feels like progress but isn’t always progress.  Sometimes it’s heading for a cliff.  The wise people I admire are always moving forward but at a pace where stopping or changing directions is possible.  There will always be the Tiger Woods of the world who can stop his prodigious golf swing in mid-swing.  Most of us can’t do that, so we need a little slower pace.  Is there a decision you’d be better off not making right now?  Not sure?  Maybe it would be a good time to ask the Lord what He thinks and see what He says to your heart.