Does God care if you win your sports competition? If you drop time at your meet? If you advance to the next level for a club, sport, or academic competition you’re in?
Some of you might answer a resounding “Yes.” But others might say, “No, why would God care about something as insignificant as how I perform in a competition? He’s got more important things to care about.”
Does God Care Who Wins? by Bob Schindler addresses the answer to this question. I never thought much about God’s purpose for putting me on the swim team and other activities I participate in until I heard Bob speak at a school FCA meeting and read this book.
Does God Care Who Wins? mainly focuses on whether God cares about sports competitions, but it can be generalized to other things. I applied this book to my writing. Does God care if I succeed as a writer? I asked. The answer must be yes, I concluded, because He cares about me. This book answered the question of why He cares.
The book addresses two responses to the question “Does God care who wins?”--yes and no--and lists the problems with each. The ‘no’ answer implies that God doesn’t care about us, since He doesn’t care about the things we like or may care about. How can He love us as much as He claims if He doesn’t care about every aspect of our lives?
On the other hand, the ‘yes’ answer may deceive us into thinking that since God is on our side, we are going to succeed in all of our worldly endeavors. God’s love and care for us doesn’t ensure we’ll live a good life by worldly standards. After explaining these answers, the book comes to a conclusion: God cares who wins competitions, but for different reasons than we do.
Often, our motivation for winning a competition is glory. We want people to know we came first in our heat, won our tournament, or improved in our craft. If we win games, keep improving, and advance to a high level in something, our flesh believes it will satisfy our longing for glory. Little do we realize that we will be brought the most glory by giving all glory to God.
“Whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted” (Matthew 23:12).
For our longing for glory to be satisfied, we must first humble ourselves. We must do so to the point that we realize we don’t deserve glory, but God does. To the point that we long to give all glory to God.
God cares about whether we win our competitions because the outcome and how we respond to it can glorify Him.
Do you long to glorify God?
When I read the sentence, “We foolishly think to glorify God will cost us glory” on page 64 of the book, I stopped in my tracks.
I realized that my flesh longed for glory--not from my sport like this book addressed, but from writing. I want writing to be my career when I grow up. And to make writing into my career, I either have to sell a lot of books or turn my writing into a business.
Selling a lot of books is more appealing to me, so I started to long to make myself known to the world. To establish myself as a good writer. I wrote so I could succeed in the future, and God became my excuse to write. I said I was writing for Him, but He wasn’t my true motivation.
Now, I have started to overcome that struggle day by day. I have to remind myself that my writing’s purpose is to serve God and my readers---it is not for my own advancement, and there is no point in writing unless it is motivated by a desire to please God.
“Unless the LORD builds the house, those who build it labor in vain. Unless the LORD watches over the city, the watchman stays awake in vain” (Psalm 127:1).
God cares about my writing, but not for the same reasons I do. Maybe instead of it being my career, God wants it to be a side job. I want to be okay with that. God will put me in a position where I can best serve Him and advance His kingdom.
Does God Care Who Wins? helped me realize that I have a serious glory problem--and I’m not the only one who struggles with it. Just as the author of the book and many others long for glory through sports, I also long for glory. But I can overcome my struggle for glory alongside other Christians through the power of the Holy Spirit.
Do you struggle for glory in any areas? Where do you need to release control and give all glory to God?