The unimaginable joy of being fearfully and wonderfully made

Sunday’s London Marathon resulted in a barrier-breaking accomplishment that, until recent years, would have been considered unthinkable. Kenya’s Sabastian Sawe ran the first sub-two-hour marathon, finishing in 1:59.30.

Sawe’s time is over an hour faster than the legendary three-hour run of Pheidippides, the Greek soldier who ran from Marathon to Athens with the proclamation of military victory over the invading Persians (490 BCE). Though likely a mythical account, his achievement is considered the inspiration for the sport of marathon running.

While the difference between Sawe’s and Pheidippides’s times is significant, more telling is the fact that, for nearly 2500 years, there was negligible improvement in the posted times of marathon winners. For example, Johnny Hayes, the 1908 Olympic marathon champion, won the gold medal with a world-record time of 2:55.18, which would not even meet today’s Boston Marathon qualifying time for men in the same age group.

While pundits would argue that Sawe’s record run was the result of advanced footwear, ideal race conditions, and a predominantly flat course, what cannot be dismissed is the immeasurable capacity of the human spirit, the physical body, and the trained mind; a scale of possibility that continues to reveal itself in myriad ways across the vast panorama of the human dilemma.

The limits God would have us reach

We’ve seen this trend at work in nearly every sport. The 1908 Olympic springboard diving event, for instance, included the forward one-and-a-half somersault not as a compulsory dive, but one of the 20 higher-risk options from which a diver might choose. Today, the four-and-a-half forward somersault is a standard, frequently performed competitive dive.

Whether it’s the four-minute-mile, the sub-10-second 100-meter dash, the perfect 10 in gymnastics, long jumping over 28 feet, or scoring 100 points in an NBA game, sports history is filled with declarations from experts, medical doctors, and sports commentators deeming certain barriers to be not only “unbreakable” but physically impossible.

Sabastian Sawe, however, would not be deterred from his quest by the pundits of his sport.

Beyond the sign of the cross and the folding of his hands in prayer after his victorious run, all accounts indicate that Sawe possesses a strong, foundational faith passed down by his family. Before the race, he promised to help finish building the church where his family in Kenya attends, and his parents were quick to praise God for their son’s victory.

Perhaps he understands that a gift received must be stewarded, nurtured, developed, tested, pushed, and expanded to the limits God would have it reach. It is in such a pursuit as this that God is glorified.

The pursuit of the imperishable

That we are fearfully and wonderfully made (Ps. 139:14), being made in the image of God (Gen. 1:27), crowned with glory and majesty (Ps. 8:5), has broad application to the unimaginable potential and possibilities of humankind as an expression of the inbreaking of the kingdom of God; perhaps even in and through athletic competition.

In recent years, there have been a substantial number of books, articles, and story lines that place the convergence of faith and sports in a negative light. While it’s important to acknowledge the potential for conflict when these two intersect, there are positive connections that, when rightly understood, prompt, inspire, and encourage us forward in the journey of faith.

Throughout the New Testament we find athletic metaphors utilized to highlight the development of a victorious faith (2 Tim. 2:5), how to fight the good fight (1 Tim. 6:12), and what is necessary to endure to the end (Heb. 12:1). Conceding that bodily training is just slightly beneficial (1 Tim. 4:8), the apostle Paul, nonetheless, observes in athletic competition a level of commitment and sacrifice that must be pursued with even greater fervor in the life of faith (1 Cor. 9:24-27).

Surely, the Corinthians recognized in Paul’s correspondence an allusion to the Isthmian Games, held every two years in Corinth as one of the four Panhellenic Games celebrating Greek athleticism. His acknowledgment of these athletes and the process by which they came to compete at the highest level—their determination, focus, discipline, self-control, and purposeful intentionality—implies that if such dedication goes into the attainment of a perishable wreath, should not the followers of Christ be even more diligent in their pursuit of the imperishable?

A desire to run well

From my observation as a football team chaplain for nearly forty years, I would offer to those critical of faith in sports that those athletes for whom faith truly matters and informs their life, the desired expression of their faith isn’t to crush an opponent, win at all costs, or entertain the crowds to gain their adoration. In fact, their preoccupation isn’t the next opponent or game but, rather, how they can best develop this unique gift God has entrusted to them, that they might maximize the possibilities of this gift. For these, their greatest opponent is the man in the mirror, and he is the one with whom they compete daily.

This mindset of faithful stewardship is most evident not on game day, but in the choices, decisions, and sacrifices made in their every waking moment. From what they eat, with whom they associate, where they go, their training effort, their studies, to what time they go to bed, to what time they awaken, it is all done heartily as for the Lord and not for man (Col. 3:23).

Because they were committed to Jesus being Lord of all, these few not only put themselves in a position to perform well in their tasks on gameday, but also became witnesses of the Faith, inspirational role models, respected voices, and leaders in the locker room.

In recent interviews, the humble Sabastian Sawe has acknowledged the downturns, challenges, and obstacles he has faced throughout his career, but he simply credits his disciplined, rigorous training for putting him in a position to run well. And from a desire to only run well emerged the unimaginable.

The race to which the followers of Jesus are called will undoubtedly be a course filled with difficulties and hardships, some bringing forth a degree of pain that could not have been anticipated, a pain that may well push some to the point of despair. It is in these moments most of all that we must recover the touchstone reality of who we are in Christ Jesus, that we are the children of God, fearfully and wonderfully made. By this, we persevere and endure to experience the unimaginable of what God has in store.

Denison Forum

The unhappiness of our culture and the path to abiding hope

The New York Times has named Taylor Swift one of America’s “greatest living songwriters.” American Idol recently had each of its singers perform from her songbook.

What is the secret to her abiding popularity?

Consider this anecdote: In her Times interview, she explained that she wrote her hit song “Love Story” at the age of seventeen after her parents wouldn’t let her date an older man. “I have this very strong opinion that when you’re young, you feel things on such an intense and detailed level,” she said.

According to Time, her ability to connect with the frustrations and sadness so many people feel makes them “feel seen.” If the latest research is to be believed, the audience for such empathy is only growing these days.

 “Unusually adrift and dissatisfied”

University of Chicago economist Sam Peltzman recently documented “a sudden, sharp, and historically unprecedented decline in self-reported happiness in the US population.” Journalist Derek Thompson cites Peltzman’s work and adds that the Federal Reserve’s measure of US worker satisfaction has fallen to its lowest level since the survey began in 2014. Consumer sentiment has also fallen to the lowest level ever recorded in the seventy-year history of the survey.

Here’s what these indexes have in common: they began to plunge in 2020 and have not recovered.

According to Thompson, the explanation is simple: “As a cultural-political force, the 2020 pandemic never ended.” He is calling the COVID-19 pandemic the “permademic.” He explains:

American sadness this decade has been forged by the fact of, and the feeling of, a permanent, unrelenting economic crisis, amplified by a uniquely negative news and media environment, and exacerbated by the rise of solitude and the declining centrality of trusted institutions. Inflation has made today’s life harder to afford, while the ambient awareness of other people’s triumphs on social media [has] made tomorrow’s success feel harder to achieve.

The ongoing collapse of confidence in the establishment has made Americans feel unusually adrift and dissatisfied with institutions outside their control, while the chosen self-isolation of modern life has demolished communal trust, as we increasingly experience other people’s minds through the toxic surreality of our screens rather than through the embodied reality of strangers.

The yearning of our hearts for hope

It is hard for humans to live without hope: a sense that our lives are progressing along a trajectory that will make the future better than the present.

We go to school in the hope that we will learn and achieve in ways that will position us for careers of success and significance. We take jobs in the hope that the money we earn and the tasks we perform will give our lives meaning and security. We marry and begin families in the hope that we will forge homes of mutuality and joy.

But we somehow know that we are in ourselves insufficient to this yearning of our hearts, that we need the help of others if we are to grasp the hope we seek.

Consequently, for many centuries those who inhabited the Christendom of the West believed that their faith in God expressed through participation in the sacraments and traditions of the Catholic Church would ferry them forward and into eternity. Protestants refocused their hope on the Scriptures and their promise of personal salvation in this life and the next. For multiplied millions, secularism supplanted both with the confidence that unbridled human reason and scientific advances would open the way to a more utopian present.

A poster in a roadside café

Then came the pandemic.

For the first time in living memory, none of us was safe and all were at risk. A virus with no vaccine or cure could infect and kill us. We watched in horror as makeshift morgues were erected to house too many corpses to count. Nearly everyone lost someone they knew or knew someone who had experienced such loss.

My wife and I recently took a road trip, stopping at a café for breakfast. As we waited for a table, my attention was drawn to a laminated poster near the door depicting a smiling, bearded middle-aged man. According to the explanation beside the picture, this was the founder and owner of the restaurant, a man who loved his family, his employees, his customers, and his life. He died of COVID-19 in 2021 at the age of sixty-four.

Such posters could be posted in businesses and homes all across the land. Neither faith in God nor trust in secularism insulated millions from death. Those of us who survived learned that we are just as mortal as those we lost, our lives and futures just as frail as theirs.

“Sensing which choice will carry you forward”

But perhaps we have learned the wrong lesson from the pandemic. Rather than abandoning hope in a future that can be so easily taken from us, we can choose to refocus our hope in a different dimension altogether.

Rosie Sultan is the author of a beautiful and moving narrative of divorce, disease, and healing titled “The Art of Letting Go.” She tells of her divorce, life as a single mother, and her leukemia diagnosis. She employs the Boston Marathon as a metaphor for her journey, writing that marathon runners “let go of their doubt at mile twenty, their exhaustion at mile twenty-three, their need to look graceful as they cross the finish line. They hang on to their next step, and the one after that—but they let go of everything else.”

After watching this year’s race, she reports: “I walk home under the trees and think that the answer isn’t to hang on. It isn’t to let go. It’s the art of sensing which choice will carry you forward, step by quiet step.”

Let’s reframe her eloquent reflections within the encompassing grace of Jesus. We do not “hang on” to him—he is holding onto us and will never “let go” (John 10:28). When we consciously practice his abiding presence, he carries us through this day—the only day that exists—“step by quiet step.”

As we turn our thoughts to him, his Spirit fills our thoughts with peace (Philippians 4:6–7). As we spend our moments in glad gratitude for his manifold gifts, every moment becomes his gift to us (James 1:17). Even (and especially) in the hardest places and darkest days, we find that our Savior suffers with us, grieves with us, and sustains us with his unconquerable love (Romans 8:37).

And we find our hearts filled with hope, not just for a blessed future we cannot yet see, but with a joyful present we can embrace today.

The fourteenth-century mystic Julian of Norwich assured us, “All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.”

Do you agree?

NOTE: For practical ways to experience the presence of Christ each day, please see my new website article here.

Quote for the day:

“If you have been reduced to God being your only hope, you are in a good place.” —Jim Laffoon

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Denison Forum

King Charles III addressed a joint session of Congress on Monday afternoon. Watching on television as he entered the chamber to a standing ovation, I wondered what our Founders would have thought as the British monarch was welcomed into our highest cathedral of independent governance.

The king expressed solidarity with our nation, bringing “the highest regard and friendship of the British people to the people of the United States.” As he noted, our “democratic, legal, and social traditions” stretch back to Magna Carta, showing that “time and again, our two countries have always found ways to come together.” He added that our defense and military alliance is “measured not in years but in decades.”

The king also stated that “for many here—and for myself—the Christian faith is a firm anchor and daily inspiration that guides us not only personally, but together as members of our community.” He then spoke to our shared duty to “value all people, of all faiths, and of none.”

His remarks illustrated the balancing act a British monarch must perform daily. On one hand, he is the sovereign of the United Kingdom, the leader in whose name the government is formed and acts. On the other hand, he is constitutionally bound to remain above politics. His role is to represent the UK rather than to speak for its government. The monarch often gives political and practical advice to prime ministers and other leaders, but always in private.

As the English poet Tennyson once noted, Britain is a “crowned Republic,” one in which the monarch reigns but does not rule.

“America’s greatest secular saint”

By contrast, the American president embodies both the performative and the practical. He is head of state as well as commander in chief. He engages with the British monarch and other visiting dignitaries in symbolic and ceremonial ways, but he also leads an administration responsible for enforcing the nation’s laws, among other executive functions.

The president and vice president are the only political leaders elected by the entire country. As a result, the Founders were especially concerned to strike a balance that empowered the nation’s leader without giving him unaccountable authority. Accordingly, he can veto legislation but he cannot write it. He can nominate justices to the courts, but he cannot confirm them. He is elected by the people, but he can be impeached by their elected representatives.

As Joseph Ellis writes in His Excellency: George Washington, our first president remains “America’s greatest secular saint.” But the “father of our country” took great pains to ensure that the precedents he set would reinforce his role as the servant of the republic rather than its monarch. If he surrendered his military authority after winning the Revolutionary War, King George III said he would be “the greatest man in the world.” And that is just what Gen. Washington did, resigning his commission and returning to private life.

When he was unanimously chosen by the Electoral College to be our first president, he visited every state in the infant nation, including sixty towns and hamlets. He consistently refused all trappings of monarchy, dressing and comporting himself as an ordinary citizen.

The true power of the country, he insisted, lay in its people. And their power, he asserted, is derived not from government but from the “indispensable supports” of “religion and morality.” What’s more, he noted, is that morality cannot be maintained “without religion.”

As my friend, the retired Congressman Frank Wolf, has observed, politics are downstream from culture, which is downstream from religion.

“Ill-equipped to govern and convert”

In a brilliant and complex article for American Reformer titled “Whither the Reformation in America?”, the political theorist Joshua Mitchell surveys the religious worldviews that are especially dominant in American history and culture. He then asks which, if any, can guide us into a perilous future.

In his view, Catholicism is too hierarchical, in ways akin to Europe and the Old World, to capture the heart of American individualism. Progressive Christianity calls for national repentance and redemption from white supremacy, racism, and other historic oppressions, but without a consequent call to transformation through personal faith in Christ. As New York Times columnist Ross Douthat writes in his reflection on Mitchell’s article, this version of Christianity “believes in sin but not God.”

According to both Mitchell and Douthat, evangelicals are unable to shape the future because we are fundamentally anti-worldly: “strong enough only to fortify the walls” against a “hostile external world” (according to Mitchell) and “ill-equipped to govern and convert beyond [our] bastions” (according to Douthat).

But this is a misreading of evangelicalism at its biblical best.

We proclaim a gospel of personal salvation because only persons can be saved. Nations have no souls for which Jesus could die, no existential reality that can live eternally in paradise. But we also proclaim a gospel that transforms persons so they can be catalysts for further transformation.

The moment Andrew met Jesus, he had to tell Peter (John 1:40–42). The moment the early Christians were “filled with the Spirit,” they had to witness to the crowds at Pentecost (Acts 2:1–41). Before long, they were building a culture centered on biblical morality and compassion (Acts 2:42–47; 4:32–37; 5:12–16). Everywhere they went, they became change agents for society as well as souls (cf. Acts 17:6; 19:18–20, 27).

The problem with “Friend Sunday”

But there’s more. Neither Mitchell nor Douthat discuss the eschatological impulse of evangelicalism by which all we do in this world prepares us for all we will experience in the next. We are not merely waiting for Jesus to return and make things better: we are preparing for his return (Matthew 24:14) by meeting needs in his name and advancing his kingdom through our glad obedience (Matthew 6:33).

This is truly a rising tide that raises all boats.

Or it should be.

The problem comes when we settle for the evangelicalism Mitchell and Douthat describe, content to know that our souls are saved and busy inside the “bastions” of our counter-cultural social monasticism.

As a young pastor many years ago, I wanted our church to conduct a “Friend Sunday.” The idea is simple: each church member invites a non-churched friend to church. I preach the gospel as simply as I can, and we follow up with our guests as effectively as we can.

When I introduced the concept to our deacons, they seemed to be in favor, though a bit reluctant. Then one of them spoke for the rest: “But pastor, we don’t know any non-Christians to invite.”

If I were your pastor, how would you respond to my idea today?

Quote for the day:

“A sign of a culture that has lost its faith: moral collapse follows upon spiritual collapse.” —C. S. Lewis

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Denison Forum