As we near the close of our meditations on the 2024 Olympics, we need to remind ourselves that often the best we can do is not enough. There are no guarantees of victory on any given day on the sports field or in life. In the 100-meter dash, the margin from first to fourth was 0.03 seconds, and that fourth guy received no medal.

More than once Steve Kerr, coach of NBA’s Golden State Warriors and the US Men’s National Basketball Team at these Olympics, said that the greatest basketball player in the world is Nikola Jokic of Serbia. Since he plays for the Denver Nuggets, I’m a huge fan. As I’ve written before, he plays a brilliant game of basketball, specializing in assists, elevating the game of everyone he plays with. He is unbelievably humble and selfless, a genuine, first-class guy…

But Serbia won Bronze, not Gold. Jokic’s team gave the USA all they could handle in their semi-final game, leading for all but the last 3 or 4 minutes of the game. Kudos to the American team for digging deep and pulling out a win. Some criticized the US for not soundly defeating Serbia by the 16 points they were favored, winning 95 – 91. A “let-down,” many said.

My version is that it took an entire team of NBA all-stars to defeat Jokic and his countrymen, which did include a couple of NBA players, but not all-stars by any stretch of the imagination. But, bottom-line, the “best basketball player in the world” did not win at the Olympics.

I wrote a few days ago that such things are to be expected. Scriptures are clear. Look at what these “exemplary” people experienced:

There were those who, under torture, refused to give in and go free, preferring something better: resurrection. Others braved abuse and whips, and, yes, chains and dungeons. We have stories of those who were stoned, sawed in two, murdered in cold blood; stories of vagrants wandering the earth in animal skins, homeless, friendless, powerless—the world didn’t deserve them!—making their way as best they could on the cruel edges of the world. Not one of these people, even though their lives of faith were exemplary, got their hands on what was promised. (Hebrews 11.35 – 39, MSG)

Sometimes the “win” comes later:

And I heard a loud voice in heaven, saying, “Now the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Christ have come, for the accuser of our brothers has been thrown down, who accuses them day and night before our God. And they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they loved not their lives even unto death.” (Revelation 12.10, 11, ESV)