Article

Character

Creed

Sport

6 August 2024

6 min read

Letter to the Olympians

A veteran sports chaplain writes a letter to Christian Olympians, on how they can find joy amid the 'funerals and weddings' of the games.

Ashley Null

Ashley Null serves as a chaplain to elite athletes and coaches. He is also a priest and an academic.

A swimmer at the end of a race, looks to the result screen.

Adam Peaty after an Olympic race.

BBC.

Dear Friend,

Congratulations on being selected to compete in the Olympics - the greatest games in the world! I’m sure you can’t wait to get out there and show the world what you’ve got - your amazing talent and skill and all the hard work and dedication that has gone into becoming an Olympian.

Now, it has been said that being at the Olympics is like experiencing 10 funerals for every 1 wedding. You know this if you’re in elite sport - every one person’s victory is at the expense of many others’ agony of defeat.

These next few weeks will be full of the strongest emotions and potential challenges to how you think about your faith. What does it look like to integrate your faith and your sport in the midst of such pressure?

First, God has called you to the Olympics to experience true joy.

The first reason God gave the good gift of sport is for it to bring joy.

“In the heavens God has pitched a tent for the sun. It is like a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, like a champion rejoicing to run his course,” writes the Psalmist.

God compares our sport to a honeymoon - both physically and emotionally satisfying - what high praise for the joy of sport!

Every race, every match, every competition, is an opportunity to experience this God-given joy.

This joy will help you in the ups and especially in the downs over the next few weeks. The Bible makes this clear again and again, that it is joy that helps us endure the difficulties in life.

These next few weeks, make a conscious effort to count every blessing, thanking God for the joy of sport and the amazing experience he has given you.

As you compete you can witness to many the wonderful joy of sport... By not torturing yourself in defeat with self-loathing and shame, instead rejoicing with those who win and weeping with those who don’t.

Second, but Elite Competition isn’t only about joy. It includes uncertainty, fear, and even loss. God can use all aspects of sport, both the highs and the lows, to draw you closer to Himself.

The second reason God give gifts to his people is to use them as a school of discipleship.

St Paul writing to Christians in Ephesus said: “So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ."

God has given you this vocation as a ‘school of discipleship’ to learn what it looks like to love God and love others.

As you compete and lean on the promises of God, you have endless opportunities to grow in living out your faith.

To remember your identity is based on the cross and not your success and failures
To remember the power you have to compete does not come from your own strength but from Christ who is at work in you
To remember your standing before God does not change because of God’s grace, whether you win or lose, fail or succeed
To remember that if you do lose, God will be there with you and use your pain, but that the pain will not have the last word in your life - God will work all things for good

Third, you can serve others as you compete.

As you compete you can witness to many the wonderful joy of sport:

By competing drug-free and within the rules you can show an alternative to the winner-takes-all attitude so prevalent in all sport.
By not treating your opponent as the enemy but valuing them as a ‘co-worker’ you can push each other on to excellence.
By showing humility and thankfulness in victory, recognising that other Christian athletes have worked just as hard and prayed just as much, but that God has set aside gifts other than Olympic success for them.
By not torturing yourself in defeat with self-loathing and shame, instead rejoicing with those who win and weeping with those who don’t.

In all this you can show the wonderful, transforming news of the gospel at work in your life as you experience joy in the midst of the funerals and weddings seen at the Olympic Games.

But what if things don’t work out as you hoped? God will be there for you and with you in the midst of the pain. As you grieve, look for Jesus.

He will give you the comfort you long for.

He will remind you that his love for you is stronger and will last much longer than your present pain.
He will assure you that he still has good things for you.

Ask his help to hold on to this truth. Because when you are hurting, it is so easy to listen to lies. You see, it’s a real danger to view God as your ultimate coach.

The lie says that if you make good spiritual choices then you will be on God’s winning team and blessed with success. But when success doesn’t happen, the lie says it’s because you have made bad choices and don’t deserve to be on the team, at least not until you can prove yourself spiritually good enough again.

In all of your sporting career you’ve probably been taught to only feel good about yourself when you’re winning, that if you lose, you’re nothing. Your coaches may have told you to use the shame of losing to motivate you to success.

Friend, you need to separate your sense of worth, your identity, from your performance. Equating significance and achievement will always leave your self-esteem at the mercy of the natural ups and downs of being a top-level sportsperson. But only love has the power to make humans feel significant, performance never will.

The good news of the gospel is that in God, you have unconditional love, not based on any of your performance. You are valued and loved not because of the talents you have or the way you compete. Your worth and value is seen in the love God proved he had for you when he died for you on the cross.

St Paul tells us:

“God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

Now, as people reconciled to God there is no condemnation, nothing can separate us from God’s love and we are adopted as God’s children - this is who you are. This is where you identity alone can be found. This is where you can find peace, even in the midst of a major loss.

Friends, enjoy these next few weeks and the amazing opportunity it is. If you feel the pain of loss, know that with Jesus pain never has the last word. His love always does. If you win, know that it is a wonderful gift of God to be thankful for, and he will make good use of it, long after you have retired, giving you decades of joy.

Solo Deo Gloria!

Adapted by Jonny Reid, for Christians in Sport, from Pastoral Care in the Olympic Village by Ashley Null in Sports Chaplaincy: Trends, Issues and Debates.

Column

Change

Character

Psychology

23 May 2024

4 min read

Look out for the outliers

Seeing the good qualities in others lifts them, benefits us, and makes the world better.

Roger Bretherton

Roger Bretherton is Associate Professor of Psychology, at the University of Lincoln. He is a UK accredited Clinical Psychologist.

A office worker wearing headphones looks out of a hectic and loud office space around which people are moving

Nick Jones/Midjourney.ai

I was talking to someone the other day. She is a website developer and she’s just changed jobs. She is not a loud person, but anyone who meets her knows she is a person of quality, of depth and presence. She emanates a humble confidence. In her old job, she worked in a quiet, fairly sedate, office where she was given the space and the time to bring all her creativity to bear on whatever brief she was given. She was known and appreciated.

But her new job – the job she started last week – is a bit different. Her new colleagues are loud and outspoken. Silence is unknown in their office. They like to work to a soundtrack. The drum and bass keep thumping, and the banter never stops flowing. She’s finding it hard to fit in with her new team. And things weren’t made any easier when, after a few days, her new boss took her aside for a pep talk.

What was the problem? She was ‘too quiet’.

It hurt to hear that. It broke my heart to think that anyone could be so blind. How shortsighted do you have to be, to view the grace and peace someone carries as a problem to be solved? In a world of distressing noise and clamour, she is precisely the kind of person every office needs to temper the insanity.

I’m not worried about her. She’s bright and innovative. She’ll work it out. Either her new boss will see sense, or she’ll leave. And if she does, the queue of employers looking for someone just like her stretches round the block. She’ll be okay.

But it got me thinking about the kind of psychology I study. In my research, she would be called an outlier. One of those people in a team or a family who don’t quite fit in. Not because they are weird or awkward, but because they possess some positive quality the rest of the gang don’t have. They are the creative exuberant in a team who prefer doing things by the book. The hilarious joker in a pack who like to take things seriously. The conscientious worker trying to get on with the job in an office that would rather play now and work later. The kind one in a family of cutthroat competitors.

At the top of the list of reasons for wanting to leave work are the words: I am not appreciated.

The thing is we all have a unique contribution to make to the world, a one-off fingerprint of strengths and abilities never to be repeated in anyone else. In research these have been called Signature Strengths, the unique combination of positive qualities that make you you. And the weird thing is that we don’t have to try that hard to be them. If you are naturally kind, or wise, or grateful, or disciplined you won’t be able to stop yourself being that way. They come effortlessly to us. And if someone tries to stop us being the loving thoughtful faithful person we know ourselves to be, it is like losing a limb. If we find ourselves in a context where the most beautiful things about us are unwelcome – like my friend the website developer – it is like being rejected, right to the core.

But here’s the cool thing. If we can live by our Signature Strengths – if we can wake up each morning and ask the question, how can I use my unique positive qualities in a new way today? – it leads to remarkable improvements in wellbeing. Multiple studies have shown that those who live like this, thinking about how they can bring what is best in them to the opportunities and obstacles of each day, report increased happiness in living. Not only that, but they also show reduced anxiety, stress and depression. It turns out being good is good for us. Who knew.

That’s not the whole story though. To really be our best, we need other people to spot these strengths in us. If they don’t, we feel confined, unable to be ourselves in some way. When I ask people what it is like not to be able to bring their best qualities to the people around them, they come up with some pretty dark images. It is lonely, isolating, a desert, a fog, a prison, like being trapped in a cage. And when researchers ask people why they consider leaving their current job, their answers often reflect something like this. Work-life balance and salary are no doubt important, but often, at the top of the list of reasons for wanting to leave work are the words: I am not appreciated. Something good we wanted to give has not been received. We feel unseen.

So that’s why I say: look out for the outliers. Who is it in your family, your workplace, your neighbourhood, who goes underappreciated? Who do you know who has something good to give, but needs some help to give it? Because if we can learn to see those invisible beautiful qualities in the people around us, we not only give them the joy of being known, we also invite more light and flavour into the world. Life becomes a little less grey.

I just hope my friend’s new boss can learn this while he still has the chance. It is tough for her to feel so misunderstood, but it’s worse for him. She can move on, but he has to remain in an office deprived of the humble compassion she would have brought to it. It’s a question worth asking. What gift of beauty and goodness are we excluding from the world because we failed to see past the packaging?