A Moment in Time

I've laid the plans, 

Now lay the chance,

Here in my hands.

If I ever need to open the floodgates and let myself sob, there are only a small handful of things in my toolbox that can get me there.

One of them, ever since I was a teenager, has been Whitney Houston's One Moment in Time

Oddly enough, it isn't the song by itself that moves me. I listened to it recently without the video and realized something was missing. I needed to see the images. The athletes. The Olympics. The competition. Watching people pour years of sacrifice into a few brief moments. Some win gold. Some win silver. Some don't place at all. Yet every one of them has given something extraordinary just to stand on that stage. It's the marriage of those images with the song that gives it its full emotional weight.

Something about that raw display of human effort, determination and endurance moves me every single time. I actually avoid watching it too often because I'm afraid I'll become numb to its power.

I finally realized why it affects me so deeply.

It reminds me of Denver's parable, The Great Competition.

In the parable, the competition seems, on the surface, to be about improving their “health and vigor.” But by the end we discover that wasn't the ultimate purpose at all. The competition revealed character. It refined the people. It exposed loyalty. Most importantly, it revealed who could live together in peace forever.

It changed the way I think about this life.

It isn't difficult because God delights in suffering. It is difficult because some things simply cannot be learned any other way. Loyalty. Trust. Endurance. Forgiveness. Peace. These virtues have to be lived before they become part of us.

The Olympics stir something deep in me because every athlete has decided the prize is worth the sacrifice. They willingly embrace years of discipline, disappointment, failure, pain and perseverance for the chance to stand on that podium.

The gospel asks us a similar question:

What prize is worth giving your life to?

I love this line from the song:

“I broke my heart for every gain, to taste the sweet, I faced the pain.”

Those words make me think of Jesus.

He didn't seek suffering for its own sake. But He willingly accepted every bitter step because of the joy set before Him. As Denver expressed it:

“He lived with a higher ‘specific gravity’ than any of us have ever had to fight against. And he won for each of us a prize that is potentially eternal.”

Then He invited us to follow Him.

Sometimes I think we focus so much on the pain of discipleship that we forget what it is producing. Every sacrifice, every act of faith, every difficult decision to follow Christ when another path looks easier is shaping us into something we could not become any other way.

The prize was never simply surviving the competition.

It's becoming the kind of people who can receive the kingdom. People who can live forever in peace with God and with one another. As the King explains in the parable, immortality without peace would not be a reward. It would be a punishment.

The journey changes us.

But I don't think the destination should be minimized either.

I imagine an Olympian standing on the podium after years of unseen discipline, setbacks, injuries, lonely training sessions, crushing disappointments. In that moment, every sacrifice suddenly makes sense.

Maybe that is only the faintest glimpse of what it will feel like to stand before Christ and hear the words “Well done.”

The Olympics remind me that struggle is honorable.

The Great Competition reminds me that struggle has eternal purpose.

And the gospel reminds me that I do not compete alone. Christ has already run the race before me. He broke His heart for every gain. He tasted the bitter cup so that one day we could taste the sweet.

Then I found myself thinking about another line from the song:

“I'm only one, but not alone.”

I realized that isn't just true spiritually. It's true of every great competition.

No Olympian reaches the podium alone. Behind every medal stand coaches, trainers, parents, teammates, competitors, even rivals. The very people they had to overcome helped make them into the athlete capable of standing there.

Our discipleship isn't much different. Christ walks before us and beside us, but He also surrounds us with people who shape us. Some encourage us. Some correct us. Some wound us. Some forgive us. Even those who oppose us become part of the very training God uses to refine us.

If we one day hear the words “Well done,” it will not be because we arrived there by ourselves. It will be because Christ carried us, and because He mercifully placed other travelers along the path who helped form us into people capable of receiving His kingdom.

I keep coming back to those images of athletes pouring everything they have into one moment in time because they echo a greater reality. This life is the arena. The competition is real. The pain is not pointless. And the prize, both who we are becoming and the “Well done” waiting at the end, is worth far more than we can yet imagine.