"In Search of the Perfect Sportsman"

"I will celebrate you with what I have been made of a strange and wonderful way. All your works are wonderful, and my soul knows it very well." Psalm 139. 14

It is the title of a television program broadcast a few weeks before the Rio Olympics in August 2016. It is known that new records will be established, although physical training seems to have reached its limits. Would there be new ways to explore to surpass themselves ? Interviewed in this show, French pole vaulter Jean Galfione declares: "Understanding how the brain works is the key to making a difference in a competition." To create effective automatisms, to stimulate very rapid reflexes, to improve the coordination of the movements ... here is the future! In other words, we are interested in neuroscience. But we can certainly fear a pursuit of the dream of a "superman" who in fact would no longer really be a man.

Yet one can be challenged by this expression "in search of the perfect sportsman". It designates a goal that one knows inaccessible : perfection ; In spite of this one sets to work to advance towards this goal, one explores new tracks.

Many biblical texts compare believers to athletes :

"Do you not know that those who run in the stadium all run, but only one receives the prize ?" (1 Corinthians 9:24)

"The athlete is not crowned if he has not struggled according to the rules" (2 Tim.2: 5).

Paul considers his life as a race :

"Not that I have already received the prize, or that I have already attained perfection ; But I continue, seeking to grasp it, seeing also that I was seized by Christ. I do one thing, forgetting the things that are behind and tending with effort to those before, I run straight to the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus."

The Bible does not talk about neuroscience, but it encourages us to focus as Paul on our true goal: the reward prepared for those who hear the call of God and fully respond to it. Perhaps we should develop automatisms or, rather, healthy lifestyles ? Perhaps we need to improve our reflexes in order to react more with the character of a child of God ? Perhaps we can be more efficient by better coordinating our spiritual, professional and family lives.

Source (To pleasing the Lord)