OLYMPIC VALUES

No one can be asked to do better than their best.  Win or lose—Gold, Silver, Bronze or no medal, if we each do our best, there can be a certain satisfaction in a race well run. And doing our best, giving our “all” in the places where we put our energy is God honoring. Excellence can be sought selfishly or not, but fulfilling and becoming all God made us to be, to live lives of excellence, honors God.

Here is a value often missing in our world.  There seems to be an increasing interest in only respecting oneself, but Scripture calls us to “show proper respect” for everyone. How would this change our world? Respect is a call to be fair, knowing your own limits while taking care of yourself and the people in your sphere of influence.  How do we learn to respect others, especially those who see things differently than we do?  What could happen if we followed Scripture and respected one another – even those we consider on an “opposite side?”

How important to you is the value of having friends—someone who “gets” you? What are the traits exemplified by friends for one another?  Proverbs 17:17 says “A friend loves at all times!”  How can we develop the traits that make it easy for us to be friends? And what does it mean when Jesus says he call us friends, that like Abraham, we can be a friend of God?