Gold Medal

Many years ago I competed in the Police Olympics.  I made the decision to create a relay team that had no possibility of losing.  I would get the best runners, train hard and come home with the gold medal. 

I found the perfect starter and the perfect anchor.  Of course I would take the third leg and our second leg was great.  We had the perfect team, that is until our second leg became ineligible.  What would we do now?  We had a team minus one girl.  I recruited a friend who I knew liked to run and thought she would be the right fit for our vacancy.  Boy was I wrong.  I discovered she could run but she was a distance competitor and ran at a slower pace than a relay.

I knew as the third leg, I would have my work cut out for me.  Day after day I would go to the track with my father and he would time me and encourage me as I ran.  "Faster, faster, faster" he would say.  The sun was beaming but I would do just as my dad said...faster! 

The day of the race, our second leg had a slow run.  We were in fourth place when she handed me the baton.  I took that baton and ran for my life.  I would not let my father down!  I would make my father proud of me and all the work he had done.  I was determined to come home with that gold medal.  With sheer determination and will, we were in first place when I handed the baton to our anchor.  We had won the gold medal.

To see the expression of joy on my father's face was all worth it.  When our eyes met, I ran to him and hugged him knowing I had made him proud.  I knew that whether we won or lost, he would still love me but in my mind,  a win would validate his work.  

So many times we want to please God by our performance.  We want to be better, do better, do more and God just wants our hearts.  Our "performance" does not dictate how much he loves us.  There is nothing we can do to make God love us more than He already does.   

God wants a relationship based on grace not performance.  He wants us to genuinely seek His face and not put on airs of being this "good Christian girl."  I could work day and night to be the best in God's eyes and if I stopped just for a minute to think on that, I would realize that I already am. I have already won the Gold Medal.  I am God's best work.

For it is by grace that you have been saved, through faith-and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God-not by works, so that no one can boast.  For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus...  Ephesians 2:8-10