About the Sport Principle
Is there anything worse? Paying for your ticket, looking forward to the match all week, and then watching your team play out a dull 0-0 draw! Perhaps it is the end of the season, and in order to stay up, or get into the play-offs (or whatever) all your team needs is the one point they will get from the draw. So instead of entertaining the crowd and going all out for the win and the three points, they elect to ‘play not to lose’ and the result is mind-numbing and tedious beyond belief. What can often happen in these scenarios, as anyone who has witnessed them knows, is that one silly mistake lets in the opposition, and the team who were so focused on self-preservation are now chasing the game, wishing they had started out playing for the win, and invariably they do end up losing!
Application to Life
In a recent survey of elderly people, asked what they regret most about their life as they looked back, a surprising number expressed remorse that they hadn’t taken more risks! Might this be true in your life? Where can you take some more risks today? It’s well known that high rewards are travelling companions to high risks. And I’m not talking about doing stupid or dangerous things! We don’t need to kiss our brains goodbye to achieve that adrenaline rush that comes with taking a risk for God in the incredibly satisfying knowledge that you are doing the right thing. Take a risk by opening your mouth and sharing God’s love with someone. Or do it in your actions, if not with words. Make yourself vulnerable to another human being. What’s the worst that can happen? Go on, take a risk today.
Perhaps for you, there is a bigger, more game-changing, life altering decision that you need to take and follow through on today. You may have been thinking about it for some time, but now is the time to stop thinking and praying, and start acting.
Start by asking God where in your life you could increase the level of risk. That kind of question is one that I have found God loves to answer (along with questions like “Lord, show me what displeases you about my life?”) God often tends to drop answers to these kinds of questions straight into my heart literally as soon as I have asked them. I think it’s something to do with His purity, and His requirement that we live lives of obedience to Him.
Let’s collectively commit to stop ‘playing not to lose!’ Let’s do our best to get that ball in the back of the net for the Kingdom of God. Even if we fail, at least we’ll have the satisfaction that we provided a pleasing performance for the only spectator to our lives that matters – that audience of one who is cheering us on from heaven, encouraging us to take more risks in following in the footsteps of the greatest risk-taker of all, His son, Jesus Christ. Make sure you don’t get to the end of your life and look back with regret. What’s stopping you?
“He who observes the wind will not sow, and he who regards the clouds will not reap.”
Ecclesiastes 11:4
If you’re not living on the edge, you’re taking up too much room!
