Let the Games Begin

I not a fan of the smell of spilled beer flowing between my feet from a couple seats down.  Hot dogs with mustard and onions - I can take.  Baseball's a game where miracles can happen.  I'm a little bummed that Baseball and Softball are not Olympic sports anymore.  But I do enjoy the sports - especially watching them.  The Games of the XXX modern Olympiad begin this week.  World class athletics!


I am in awe of people who can ski the alpine downhill at 80 mph.  Or - how about the first Brit to win the Tour de France?  He cycled (bi-cycle - peddling) some 2100 plus miles.  Running a marathon?  Pole vaulting? Landing a quadruple toe loop on figure skates - with grace?  Driving a race car while enduring 5 G's in the corners in the 120 degree heat, knowing a mistake can kill you?  Hitting a major league pitch thrown at 90 plus mph by judging it 1/1000th of a second?  If I could pull it off successfully three out of 10 times I'd land a multimillion dollar contract.
Sports feats are difficult. No doubt. They take endurance, skill, training and talent (hopefully foster some world peace?), but ultimately they aren’t that important. After all, athletic competitions, even the Olympics, are just games.  

Are you kidding me Moses?

Although I have never been in an Olympic competition - I sense that life itself is considerably harder and much more challenging. So what’s the hardest thing to do in life? Here’s a list what I think are the most challenging events in life.  I have not personally experienced all of them - but have known people who have.  I have walked with hundreds through these challenges.  I know my list is not your list -  all have our own personal challenges that would make our list look different.


For me?

Raising children - Forgiving - Apologizing - Regaining lost trust - Keeping faith in God during trials and tribulations - living homeless - going to bed hungry every night - burying a child - suicide - murder -removing life support from a loved one.


This list makes the complicated judgments involved in skiing at 80 mph, pole vaulting and hitting a baseball look easy. The "life list" is a tough list, but that last one — making decisions about life or death — is one of the toughest. Even when all the medical facts are known and understood, after the prognosis is clear, even when the choice is obvious, it is a tremendously agonizing decision to remove a respirator from a loved one. I become the judge. It is like I decide between life and death. Most recently - I have an ongoing conversation with a godly person who has lost his will to live.


Top world athletes, even on their hardest days, never make that kind of choice.  Is it what I expected in life?  Probably not.  But I have learned that regardless of what I expected - it is reality.


It’s in the hard places in my life that I must ask the tough questions while seeking godly truth. Then I should listen to the answers, weigh the evidence, judge and act.  I pray my choices be truth-seeking, not game-playing.  When I am presented with life’s difficult choices do I choose to be expedient rather than do what is ultimately right. Making the right choice isn’t always easy or popular. 

So what’s the hardest thing for me?  Is it learning to forgive when I am hurt? Apologizing when I would rather not?  

Was it raising my children with love, kindness and direction every day, tirelessly? Loving my enemies, both personal and national?  These acts take hope and courage and are more challenging than anything in sports. 

But I'm going to continue to face them. No doubt about it. 


It is said that once, when a batter stepped into the box and made the sign of the cross, Hall of Fame catcher, Yogi Berra, said to him, "Let's just leave God outta this, okay?"
But sometimes, God seems to interfere with the game. (And of that I am thankful).  God expects me to step into the batter’s box. And swing.  And I like that.  I still like "The Games" even without baseball & softball.  Let the Games begin!  Or - did they begin a long time ago?  Suppose it depends on my perspective.

Death Calculator

Are you dying to know when you’ll die?  With my folks being feeble at such a young age I decided to go online and take the test.  Okay - so I do believe that death is in God's hands - but there’s at least one person who thinks it’s possible to determine death dates with reasonable accuracy without God. (Maybe this is sinful to do - like taking a sneak peek at my horoscope?)  Dr. David Demko -  a well-known gerontologist did research for over 30 years on the lifestyle patterns that either enhance or diminish life expectancy. 

In 1974, while in graduate school in Michigan, he developed the death calculator and shortly later received the support of the United States Administration on Aging. Since that time it has been used all over the world as a predictor of life expectancy, based upon certain lifestyle behavior patterns.

The death calculator itself is actually a simple quiz that includes questions like the following:

“Do you have an annual physical exam?” If so, add three years to your score. If not, subtract three years from your score.

“Do you volunteer on a weekly basis?” If so, add two years to your score. If not, one year deducted. Volunteering means non-paid service to unrelated individuals.

“Are you able to laugh at, and learn from your mistakes?” If not, subtract three years. (Can I just subtract 2 if I am able to do this just sometimes?)

“Do you smoke a pack of cigarettes daily?” Subtract four years. Live or work with smokers? Subtract one year.

There’s more. “Do you own a pet?” Add two years for interactive pets (dog, cat, bird). Add one year for passive pets (fish, reptile, tarantula) - (This dude does not know my pets - and I don't call reptiles passive). If you are left-handed, subtract one year. (strange? But remember - Judas was on the left of Jesus - and the "goats" are on the left in the judgement).  For every inch of your height that exceeds 5’8”, subtract six months. (I'm toast) “Are you a religious person, and do you practice your faith?” If so, add two years.” (How about if I most of the time practice at least 1 of the 2?)

According to this -long life isn’t just a result of smart genes and dumb luck. Most of the time, it’s due to moderate eating, sleeping, diet, exercise, work and leisure. In fact, 80 percent of the factors that control how long you live are related to your lifestyle, not your genes -- now that's good news for me.  Add that to the fact that I have honored my parents (I think) & I am good to go for a long life. (Remember the commandment to honor our folks has a promise attached to it).

Dr. Demko’s quiz may predict when I am going to die, but that’s not really the point of his death calculator, is it? The point is to choose to live in the healthiest way possible — now, before I'm dead, and have no choices at all.

I better get  my act together ... now! Talk about urgency about getting on with  life now, and not later when it may well be too late.  Paul's words - “Be careful then how you live, not as unwise people but as wise, making the most of the time, because the days are evil” (Ephesians 5:15-16).

It’s this lack of attention to life, passing through without deliberate intention to a moral life that led Henry David Thoreau in 1854 to the radical decision to live alone for a time. Thoreau did not want to let life pass him by — he wanted to live it with full attention.

“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately,” wrote Thoreau in Walden, “to confront only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.”

In the end, it doesn’t matter when I die. It matters only how I’ve lived.  FYI - the calculator says I should have died 5 years ago.  So I'm feeling pretty good right now - right?