27 September 2008

YES, WE CAN
The Faith To Rise Above Our Challenges And Experience Success
Rayola Osanya-Nyyneque, New Jersey

There are lessons we can draw from the exciting, just concluded Summer Olympics in Beijing and apply to our spiritual lives. These lessons can reignite the flame of our faith and rekindle the passion of our purpose. Let the dreams begin!

THE AUDACITY OF HOPE

By conventional thinking, some things are not meant to happen at the Olympics. They are unthinkable and improbable because they have never happened before at the Olympics:

• There is not meant to be an Olympic sprint relay without the Americans—and certainly not without both the US men and women.
• One man is not meant to win 8 gold medals at one Olympics.
• One man is not meant to break 3 track sprint records at one Olympics.
• The US is not meant to finish anywhere below first place in the softball competition.
• Kenya is not meant to win any women’s track gold medals or win a marathon gold medal.
• Kenya is not meant to break an Olympic swimming record and/or gain a place in a swimming final.

....but each of these things did happen. The improbable happened and the impossible became true.

God can take any situation, any challenge, any difficulty, regardless how long it has existed or how deeply it affects you, and turn the seemingly impossible into the amazingly incredible.

Q. Are there situations in your life in which you have given up hope? God hasn’t given up on working for your good, so don’t give up in believing in his goodness.

In your vocabulary—and more so in your personal theology—do not permit the words, “it can’t be done” or “it’ll never happen.” Even when it seems foolish to believe, believe. Have the audacity to hope:

just like David when his brothers doubted him:

When Eliab, David's oldest brother, heard him speaking with the men, he burned with anger at him and asked, "Why have you come down here? I know you came down only to watch the battle" (1 Samuel 17:28) … David said to Saul, "Let no one lose heart on account of this Philistine; your servant will go and fight him." (1 Samuel 17:32)

just like the apostle Paul in face of his challenges:

I can do everything through him who gives me strength. Philippians 4:13

just like the woman who doctors had been unable to heal, who had bled for 12 months:

And a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years…she came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak … immediately her bleeding stopped and she felt in her body that she was freed from her suffering. Mark 5:25-29

But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." 2 Corinthians 12:9

You are never too weak, too small, too unequipped, too old or too disadvantaged to succeed because God’s grace is sufficient for you. There is never a situation so hopeless that it cannot change and become a victory. Have the attitude, always, that Caleb had at the age of 85:

“So here I am today, eighty-five years old! I am still as strong today as the day Moses sent me out; I'm just as vigorous to go out to battle now as I was then. Now, the LORD helping me, I will drive out [the Amalekites] just as he said." Joshua 14:10-12

DREAMS FROM THE FATHER

Some things always happen at the Olympics, and, true to form, history and expectation, they happened in Beijing. You wouldn’t imagine anything different:

• Kenya won the 3,000 metre steeplechase, as it has done ever since the event became part of the Olympics.
• Kenenisa Bekele won the 5,000 metres and 10,000 metres. He is simply unbeatable.
• The Williams sisters won the women’s tennis doubles gold medal.
• Elena Isinbaeva, the world record holder from Russia, won the women’s pole vault.

The consistency and concentration of these Olympians allowed them to achieve according to expectation. They did not get lazy simply because they had previously done so well.

As disciples, we need to muster consistency and concentration. Rather than lower our guard because of past glories, we must re-focus, re-energize and remain on the course of faith and radical discipleship.

Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. Philippians 3:13,14

Can God cement his reputation by coming through for us with mighty miracles in situations that look totally hopeless and dead? Yes he can!

Can we live out God’s dreams for us and experience his powerful and victorious intervention in our lives? Yes we can!

As long as we walk by faith and continue trusting him rather than surrender to the darkness and despair of doubt, we will achieve the dreams of our Father that he has for us.

A CHURCH WE CAN BELIEVE IN

The Olympics date back about 3,000 years. Does that make the event too old to be relevant and too ancient to excite? Far from it. And so it is with the bible and the lessons that we can learnt from it, prayer and the power we can get from it, and the church and the growth that we can achieve through it. These age-old opportunities and institutions prove that old is gold and ancient is relevant.

For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many. Mark 10:45

Just as organizers, sponsors, spectators and participants give their all to make the Games succeed, let us give our all to bring about glory in and through the church.

Q. Have you given the church your best—encouraging others, giving sacrificially financially, volunteering to serve in any way you can?

We may not win gold medals in the glare of the international spotlight with a worldwide audience of TV viewers singing our praises, recounting our exploits or naming their children after us. But we can win the race marked out for us. We can all be winners—winners who experience the exhaustion of training and the exhilaration of triumph. Yes, we can. We can, if we will only look at the God who brought his Son down from the cross and raised him from the grave then took us down into the water and raised us up to live in Him.

We can, and we will, when we trust him unwaveringly to make a way where there is no way, turn our darkness into day and answer us powerfully when we pray.