The Olympics inspire me to discipline in my own life and the lack of discipline reminds me of something I wrote about a month ago. I said I’d get back to it “in a few days.” Sorry about that!

A friend of mine, disciple-maker Mike who now lives in Missouri, called me recently to bemoan the fact that he had five men, leaders in his church, that he was trying to help, and none of them could find the time for a short daily time with God. It’s an example of complacency winning over intention. I’m going to revisit this problem in a few days. Stay tuned. – From Intention? Or Complacency? July 28, 2024

Here are some of the things I shared with Mike:

• “Maybe you’ve got the wrong guys.” Mike had asked the pastor to give him “hungry guys,” but these guys don’t appear hungry.

One who is full loathes honey, but to one who is hungry everything bitter is sweet. (Proverbs 27.7 ESV)

If, say, an elite swimming coach told an athlete how many laps to do and at what speed, and the athlete balked, the coach might rightfully conclude, “I don’t have someone who wants to be an elite swimmer.”

The Parable of the Sower clearly speaks to different “soils,” only the last of which bears fruit. (See Mark 4.1 – 20.)

• Maybe the guys haven’t yet gotten past the “drudgery” stage. All disciplines go through “drudgery, discipline, delight.” When we start something, like, for example, an exercise program, it’s sheer drudgery. It hurts. But if we stay with it long enough, we can get to “discipline.” I’ll practice it as a discipline, and I can see the benefits. If we stay with it long enough, we’ll get to “delight.” We wouldn’t want to live without it. Encourage them. Tell them…

You won’t want to do something unless you first did it when you didn’t want to.

For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it. (Hebrews 12.11, ESV)

There’s more. Stay tuned.

It’s fitting that we close our meditations on the 2024 Olympics the same way we closed the 2020 Olympics (held in 2021), with the Fiji Olympic Team singing. There may have been those at the executive level that wanted all mention of religion stifled, but that didn’t stop the Fiji team from conducting morning worship services in Olympic Village.

A Christianity Today (CT) article, “Yes, Fiji Olympians Are Singing Hymns,” opens this way:

Viral videos of the Fijian Olympic team singing in Paris show a congregation of athletes raising their voices in four-part harmony, as if they had been rehearsing in addition to training for the games. In several videos, the group is shown singing the Fijian hymn “Mo Ravi Vei Jisu” (“Draw Close to Jesus”). One video on TikTok has over 3 million views and 660,000 likes.

The CT article is worth the read in its entirety, and it’s hard to pick out just a few snippets, but here are some of the themes:

For many Fijians, especially Fijian Christians, community singing is built into the rhythm of everyday life…Many of the athletes in the Fijian coalition have likely been singing in four-part harmony since they were very young…Starting with family devotions in the home, Fijian children in Christian families grow up hearing harmony and learn to participate...

This tradition…is one that Fijian Christians carefully cultivate and preserve. The four-part harmony we hear in those viral videos is the result of generations of teaching and practice...

Singing is an embodiment of interconnection with the world, with each other, and with God…In Scripture, we see these images of trees clapping their hands, of rocks crying out. In some ways, we in the West have written off those images as hyperbole and metaphor…The physicality of singing and its effects on a congregation are sometimes lost in worship settings where the sound of a band drowns out the voices in the room. In the US, less than 20 percent of the population regularly sings in a choir, so many American Christians have lost touch with what it feels like to be in a vibrant singing community. [Note: I wrote about a dearth of singing in some of our churches back in 2019: Enter His Presence with Singing!]

 …The Fijian Olympic team’s singing in Paris demonstrates the centrality of singing to Fijian cultural identity…The Fijian rugby team often sings before or after a match, not because they want to make an evangelistic demonstration but because it’s just part of who they are. When there is singing in rugby, for example, whether for a loss or a win,…they sing because it involves their whole life, their whole community, their whole being.

Very inspiring, nearly as inspiring as the athletic events themselves. Thanks to the Fijian Olympic Team for spreading joy through music. FYI, the rugby team earned a silver medal so they can sing AND excel in sports!

Make a joyful noise to the LORD, all the earth! Serve the LORD with gladness! Come into his presence with singing! (Psalm 100.1, 2, ESV)

Praise the LORD! Praise the LORD, O my soul! I will praise the LORD as long as I live; I will sing praises to my God while I have my being. (Psalm 146.1, 2, ESV)

P.S. Back on August 2, I wrote about the Brazilian surfer pointing to Jesus in an iconic photo. Here’s a follow-up article on that Christian witness.

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)

The Olympic athletes are largely young, no surprise there, but there were exceptions. There was a 61-year-old lady from Luxembourg playing table tennis. Since there are 60-year-olds in the equestrian events, “She’s the oldest Olympian here who doesn’t ride a horse.” (She won her first match, then lost in the next round.)

Back to older athletes, there was a 41-year-old Greco-Roman wrestler from Cuba: Mijaín López, known as “El Terrible.” Here’s the opening of a Wall Street Journal piece, updated August 6, 2024:

PARIS—With a list of accomplishments longer than a swimming pool, Michael Phelps has a strong claim to be considered the greatest athlete in Olympic history. After all, his 23 gold medals is more than twice as many as anyone else.

But it turns out there’s another athlete, barely known to most of the sports world, who might have a better claim to that title. He stands at 6-foot-5, weighs about 290 pounds and has dedicated his life to overpowering some of the strongest men on the planet. 

His name is Mijaín López—and he might be the most dominant Olympian of all time.

López is a 41-year-old Greco-Roman wrestler from Cuba who seems less like an athlete than a tall tale: as solid as a mountain, as ungraspable as air. He can’t match Phelps’s overall medal count, but he looks set to achieve one feat that neither Phelps nor anyone else at the Games has ever done before. With a blowout 6-0 victory Tuesday over Chile’s Yasmani Acosta, López became the first person ever to win gold in the same individual Olympic event five times.

You can watch highlights of the Gold Medal match here. Stay tuned until the end, the most poignant moment of all. After the celebrations and hugs, López walked to the center of the ring, took off his shoes, and left them there, the universal signal in the wrestling world that he is retiring.

I don’t even know the guy, but I found that very moving.

Here, I am finished. You have to leave space for the youngsters that are coming. – Mijaín López

…the time of my departure has come. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. (2 Timothy 4.6, 7, ESV)

GOD spoke to Moses: “These are your instructions regarding the Levites: At the age of twenty-five they will join the workforce in the Tent of Meeting; at the age of fifty they must retire from the work. They can assist their brothers in the tasks in the Tent of Meeting, but they are not permitted to do the actual work themselves. These are the ground rules for the work of the Levites.” (Numbers 8.23 – 26, MSG)

I’m not finished with blogging highlights from the 2024 Olympics, but I want to acknowledge those who are faithfully following the Historical Books Reading Program. It’s a little tough right now with 1 Chronicles opening with nine chapters of names!

One of the best features of Eugene Peterson’s The Message bible is the book introductions, and the introduction to Chronicles is no exception. Here’s his paragraph on the names:

The task of Chronicles was to recover and restore Israel’s confidence and obedience as God’s people. Names launch this story—page after page of names. Holy history is not constructed from impersonal forces or abstract ideas; it is woven from names—persons, each one unique. There is no true storytelling without names. Chronicles erects a solid defense against depersonalized religion. – From The Message, Introduction to Chronicles

I’ve found it interesting to look for the few places where there are comments in addition to just listing names. One of those places is 1 Chronicles 4.9, 10. I include the verses on either side so you can see the contrast:

The sons of Helah: Zereth, Izhar, and Ethnan. Koz fathered Anub, Zobebah, and the clans of Aharhel, the son of Harum. Jabez was more honorable than his brothers; and his mother called his name Jabez, saying, “Because I bore him in pain.” Jabez called upon the God of Israel, saying, “Oh that you would bless me and enlarge my border, and that your hand might be with me, and that you would keep me from harm so that it might not bring me pain!” And God granted what he asked. Chelub, the brother of Shuhah, fathered Mehir, who fathered Eshton. Eshton fathered Beth-rapha, Paseah, and Tehinnah, the father of Ir-nahash. These are the men of Recah. (1 Chronicles 4.7 – 12, ESV, emphasis on verses 9 and 10)

One of my early Navigator mentors Mel Leader observed (long before The Prayer of Jabez by Bruce Wilkinson came out) that maybe Jabez gets this special mention because he’s the only guy who was praying in his day. He actually asked God for something:

• Oh that you would bless me and
• enlarge my border, and that
• your hand might be with me, and that
• you would keep me from harm so that it might not bring me pain! (1 Chronicles 4.10, bulleted for clarity)

There are two surprises: one that Jabez would ask for such things: blessing, increased territory, God’s presence, and God’s protection. The first part, especially, sounds a bit selfish. The second surprise is God’s response:

And God granted what he asked.

I think the challenge is clear.

Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us… (Ephesians 3.20, ESV)

[Jesus said: ] “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened. Or which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!” (Matthew 7.7 – 11, ESV)

You have not because you ask not. (James 4.2, KJV)

When I wrote yesterday about Stephen Nedoroscik, the single-focus pommel horse guy at the 2024 Olympics, I didn’t say much about his eye condition.

...he has a condition called strabismus, which is defined by the Cleveland Clinic as a form of eye misalignment, but it’s more commonly known as being cross eyed. He’s revealed on TikTok that he suffers from light sensitivity, caused by a coloboma — an area of the eye that is missing tissue, per the Cleveland Clinic. – NBC Sports, August 3, 2024

When he takes off his glasses to do his pommel horse routine, he literally cannot see. He does everything by feel.

The condition makes it extremely difficult for children to become athletes, Dr. Christopher Gappy, an ophthalmologist at the University of Michigan Kellogg Eye Center, said. About 4% of children younger than 6 years old are diagnosed with strabismus, medical officials have said. Nedoroscik is a rare case, Gappy said. “Those athletes are like unicorns. They’re super rare,” Gappy said. – Stephen Nedoroscik, the Olympic ‘pommel horse guy,’ is a unicorn, University of Michigan doctor says, Michigan Live, August 6, 2024

That’s what makes the rest of the story special. Porter Fox, a 7-year-old, from Denver, Colorado, has coloboma also. He and his mother, Emily, were in Paris for the Olympics. Here’s the story as reported by NBC-affiliate KOBI.

Emily Fox was scrolling Facebook on her phone Tuesday morning in Paris. She was slowly waking up, preparing for a big day out with her family. She and her kids had traveled in from Colorado to attend some Olympic events and explore France. Emily’s social scroll stopped when she saw a post about a U.S. gymnast with coloboma, an exceedingly rare eye condition that severely impacts vision and the physical appearance of the pupil. 

In the case of her son, Porter, the pupil of his left eye is shaped like a keyhole, spilling into the ring of hazel green. He’s essentially blind in that eye, too.

The headline on Emily’s screen read: “Gymnast Stephen Nedoroscik is the Clark Kent of the 2024 Olympics.”

…Emily pulled up the routine on her phone for her son to watch. “I always like to share things with Porter that are inspirational and uplifting and just reassuring him, you know, he’s not different ­­in this world.”

The family headed out for a day of wandering. They hadn’t seen the Eiffel Tower yet, so that was first on their list. They noticed the TODAY Show crew in action and, before they knew it, Al Roker was ushering Emily’s family onto the set. Porter and his sister, Brinkley, hung out right between Savannah Guthrie and Hoda Kotb for the final segment of Tuesday’s show.

The family had plans to watch Olympic water polo at Paris Aquatic Center, so it was almost time to go when an NBC intern mentioned that the U.S. men’s gymnastics team was right around the corner, making the media rounds after their first team medal in 16 years. Emily casually remarked that her son has the same eye condition as one of the gymnasts and, hey, isn’t that cool? The intern disappeared.

Minutes later, she reappeared with Stephen Nedoroscik. He walked right up to Porter and got down to his level to compare eyes. This was the first time either of them had met another person with their condition. “Porter said to me, ‘Mom, I really thought I was the only person with coloboma,’” Emily said. (Emphasis mine)

…Suddenly, the seven-year-old realized he wasn’t different. At least not next to his new friend, the Olympic hero.

They talked about Porter’s favorite sports – he’s into soccer and basketball these days – and they embraced for photos. Before Stephen was whisked away for his next appearance, he left Porter with one message. “Stephen told him, ‘Remember, you can do anything,’” Emily recalled. “‘Don’t ever let [coloboma] hold you back.’”

That message didn’t take long to sink in. By day’s end, Porter was listing off all the sports he would one day compete in on the world’s biggest stage. “He was saying, ‘Mom, I feel like I can go to the Olympics now,’” Emily said.

“’I want to be just like him.’”

I cry as I read this. Why? Not only is it a heart-warming story of an Olympian’s willingness to relate to a 7-year-old, it’s the story of the gracious God, working behind the scenes, who brought them together. An “everyday” miracle, I think.

All praise to the God and Father of our Master, Jesus the Messiah! Father of all mercy! God of all healing counsel! He comes alongside us when we go through hard times, and before you know it, he brings us alongside someone else who is going through hard times so that we can be there for that person just as God was there for us. (2 Corinthians 1.3, 4, MSG)

While we bemoaned the fact that the US track team can’t seem to figure out how to put together a 4 x 100 relay team that can both run AND pass the baton, the men’s gymnastics team worked on ending their medal drought. It turns out the team usually failed to medal because they failed on the pommel horse.

PARIS—The U.S. men’s gymnastics team was on the brink of winning its first Olympic medal since 2008. And the only event remaining was the one that haunted the Americans most during the drought.

It’s a bedeviling apparatus with two handles called the pommel horse. And to a generation of American gymnasts, it might as well have been covered in baby oil.

But when the U.S. unveiled this year’s Olympic roster, it featured one unusual selection: a goggle-wearing, self-professed nerd named Stephen Nedoroscik. In a sport with six different disciplines, he was the lone team member picked to compete in a single event. – Wall Street Journal, July 29, 2024

It turns out that Stephen learned in high school that the only gymnastics skill he was good at was pommel horse, so instead of working to get better on the other disciplines, he focused purely on the pommel horse. Now he’s 25 years old, a graduate of Penn State in Electrical Engineering and can solve a Rubik’s cube in less than 10 seconds. A geek. And he wears thick glasses to help him see despite two rare eye conditions. He takes them off to perform on the pommel horse giving him the appearance of a laid-back Clark Kent turning into Superman.

You can see his entire routine here (1 minute). Or, watch the entire sequence from set-up through celebrations with his teammates (4 minutes and worth it).

It’s one of the best feel-good stories of the Olympics, and there’s more. Stay tuned.

Paul said “this one thing I do.” Not, “these 14 things I dabble in.” – Skip Gray

Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. 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. Let those of us who are mature think this way… (Philippians 3.12 – 15, ESV)

There’s great mystique in the 100-meter dash. The winner gets to call himself “The World’s Fastest Man.” The 2024 Olympic champion is Noah Lyles of the US, and I’m excited. But which is more accurate: “World’s Fastest Man” or “Winner of the 100-meter dash in the 2024 Olympics”?

Here’s what I mean:

Noah Lyles beat the Jamaican by 0.005 seconds, the #3 guy was 0.02 seconds behind. That’s his red shoe across the line – the shoe, not his torso. All the runners in this picture finished in a span of 0.12 seconds.

You can watch the photo-finish race here.

Only one receives the gold medal, but they’re all extraordinarily fast. Here are the times: all under 10 seconds:

Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it. (1 Corinthians 9.24, ESV)

Unfortunately, it wasn’t much of a surprise that the US men’s 4 x 100 relay ended with a botched baton exchange. The men’s 1500 final did have a surprise: the US unexpectedly won!

Cole Hocker of the US wins the 1500.

Here’s how the race set up as described in The Final-Lap Frenzy That Delivered a Shocking U.S. 1,500 Meter Gold in the Wall Street Journal, August 6, 2024:

SAINT DENIS, France—Months of bluster and braggadocio had set up a heavyweight fight in Tuesday night’s 1,500-meter final. 

On one side, Jakob Ingebrigtsen, the pretty boy Norwegian whose family is athletic royalty. On the other, Josh Kerr, a swashbuckling Scotsman whose mouth may be the only thing that runs faster than his feet. 

The rivals have been locked in a battle for “metric mile” supremacy since the previous Olympics in Tokyo. So as they raced side by side at the Paris Games, they jostled for position, and watched each other’s every move.

What they didn’t see coming was a man-bunned American named Cole Hocker stealing into the lead.

In a shocking come-from-behind victory at the Stade de France, Hocker surged to victory in the home stretch to become only the second American runner to take the Olympic 1,500 meter title since 1908. Kerr finished second as Hocker’s teammate, Yared Nuguse, took the bronze medal.

You can watch the race in its entirety here. The Norwegian is in white and leads most of the way; the Scot is in black.

The “pretty boy Norwegian” came in fourth!

Ben-hadad sent to him and said, “The gods do so to me and more also, if the dust of Samaria shall suffice for handfuls for all the people who follow me.” And the king of Israel answered, “Tell him, ‘Let not him who straps on his armor boast himself as he who takes it off.’” (1 Kings 20.10 – 11, ESV)

As we share some highlights from the Olympics for the next few days, I want to get this “lowlight” out of the way. It’s an example of not applying our closing verse from yesterday’s blog:

For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it. (Hebrews 12.11, ESV)

Three years ago after the Tokyo Olympics I wrote that it’s not enough to be fast to win the 4 x 100 relay. You have to know how to pass the baton. It just happened again, and as a guy who knows practically nothing about track and field, I’m wondering about our process.

The US has not won a medal in this event since 2004 despite having some of the fastest men in the world. These pictures, one from 2021, and the other from last week, are nearly identical. Different runners, but both, apparently, a product of a system that doesn’t work. Are we not selecting the right runners? Men who are not only fast but who can listen to instruction and learn to work together? Do we not know how to train the lead guy on when to start running?

As I opened with, it’s a failure to apply Hebrews 12.11. You would think “they” would use the disappointment (“chastisement”) of the failure in 2021 to propel them to figure it out – to develop “the peaceful fruit of righteousness” – seamlessly passing the baton. Nope.

But the US women won their 4 x 100 relay. Different coaches? Different system? We’ve got four years to figure it out. The proverbial definition of insanity is repeating the same action but expecting different results. The other applicable piece of wisdom is:

Your systems are perfectly designed to give you the results you’re getting.

Churches keep putting all their emphasis on Sunday mornings and wondering why they’re not getting the quality of disciples they say they want. Is church simply “a performance at a place with programs run by professionals,” as David Platt has written? Or are we serious about our God-given job description?

And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ… (Ephesians 4.11 – 13, ESV, emphasis mine)

PS I shared the ideas of this blog with Mike Oldham, friend of mine and Adminstrator (and pastor-coach) of the American Baptist Churches of the Rocky Mountains, who offered this analysis and lessons-to-be learned:

• It’s ego: these guys care only about their own event and don’t take time to practice handing off the baton
• Churches have the same problem:
  • The pastor who won’t retire and pass the baton to the next generation
  • The Sunday School teacher with the same death grip on her class
  • Those who run out ahead and don’t even wait for the baton to be passed
  • The good singer in the praise band who would rather stand out as a soloist than blend in

Good lessons, Mike. Thanks! And with respect to my observation about systems, Mike has a sign in his office:

You don’t perform up to your vision; rather you perform down to your systems.