Sportsmen and women are used to pushing themselves to the limit – straining every sinew to win that gold medal, break that record, win that trophy and put their names in the history books.
In some sports that window of opportunity – where your experience, your physical attributes and your mental strength come together to give you the greatest chance of success – is sometimes a short period, where you hit your peak and it’s all downhill afterwards. Gymnastics. Diving. Sprinting. Swimming.
We’ve seen at the Tokyo Olympics what a narrow line it is between success and failure. Athletes missing out on medals by one-hundredth of a second. Highly tipped performers expected to win gold who end up pulling out with an injury. What a huge disappointment some of these professional athletes have had to deal with – particularly when for so many their whole identity is bound up with their performance and status.
It was sad to see Japanese athletes – like Graeco-Roman wrestler Kenchiro Fumita (pictured) – who had won silver medals apologising for not winning gold, when their nation had achieved its best ever medal haul at an Olympics.
Such effort and achievement, yet they were not content, and even felt shame.
Maybe they could learn a thing or two from the words of the Apostle Paul in the Bible. Writing a letter to the church in Philippi, he says this: “I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do all this through him who gives me strength.” (Philippians 4: 11b-13)
He had come to realise that his contentment was not dependent on whether he was rich or poor, whether he had material things or not, whether his circumstances were ideal or not. He had learned to be content because his strength and his identity were in God, and his love for him.
God loves us because he made us, and his son Jesus died for us. He doesn’t love us any less if we are not high achievers, or ‘successful’ in the world’s eyes. We can know contentment, because if we know him personally we are secure and loved beyond anything this world can give.