I’m aware that the Olympics were not as popular this year, but we watched a good bit in the evenings, and there are always lessons to be learned. Let’s explore a few of them over the next few days.

One thing that jumped out at me was the Olympic motto:

Faster, higher, stronger

I didn’t know this motto had religious roots:

The traditional Olympic motto is…”faster, higher, stronger”. It was proposed by Pierre de Coubertin upon the creation of the International Olympic Committee. Coubertin borrowed it from his friend Henri Didon, a Dominican priest who was an athletics enthusiast. Coubertin said “These three words represent a programme of moral beauty. The aesthetics of sport are intangible.” The motto was introduced in 1924 at the Olympic Games in Paris. – Wikipedia

I also missed the fact that they added “together” for this year’s games: faster, higher, stronger – together. But that’s not what I want to talk about today. What amazes me is the degree to which “faster, higher, stronger” is being achieved. For example,

• Two men broke the existing world record for the 400-meter hurdles, running 1.7 seconds faster than Eric Liddell’s 1924 Olympics world record of 47.6 seconds for the 400 meters WITHOUT hurdles. 
• I remember vividly the pole vault champion when I was growing up – Bob Richards, who went on to become a minister and motivational speaker. Bob did the pole vault around 15 feet 6 inches. This year, the American gold medal female did 16 feet, and the winning man did 19 feet, 9 inches, 4 feet higher than Bob Richards.
• The leading high jumper of my day was John Thomas, using the “straddle” technique. His personal best was 7 feet, 3.75 inches. Dick Fosbury introduced the “Fosbury Flop” and won the 1968 Olympics with a jump of 7 feet, 4 inches. Today, everyone uses the Fosbury Flop, and this year’s winners jumped more than 7 feet 9 inches. By the way, if you didn’t see the end of the high jump competition, it’s worth the five minutes. An extraordinary display of both athletic ability and sportsmanship.

Faster, higher, stronger. We can never rest on past accomplishments whether we are trying to be faster, higher, or stronger than everyone else, or just faster, higher, stronger than we were yesterday.

Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do, because I am going to the Father. (John 14.12, ESV)

Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. (Philippians 3.13, 14, ESV)