Run in such a way as to win the prize… with excellence!

If you’re a gold-medal winning swimmer, gymnast, decathlete, whatever… You train, you practice, you prepare, you do your best on practice day so that you can win whatever you’re capable of… hopefully the “big prize”… Then when you’re standing on that platform, the whole world says “well done”. What a great image Paul gave us of our own spiritual preparation in all the things we do for God. Our best, nothing less.

I have quite a number of friends who play on worship teams with me at Tri-County Church who do this. One guy in particular comes to mind on this… he sinks a lot of his time (and money, for gear) into his excellent guitar playing (and then he’s super generous with stuff he’s no longer needing and super generous with his time… a “hilarious” giver if there ever was one) and whenever I have him playing on stage next to me, I particularly know that he’s going to give the best that he can to the job at hand and is going to sound amazing. He’s not the only one I’m glad to say! A lot of the other musicians who serve with me do the same thing, and when I’m leading worship on stage next to musicians who’ve spent a lot of time preparing, it’s a joy.

Thanks to all of you who work so hard on this. Well done, good and faithful servants.

Just happy to be there.

It seems 8 is no longer the Chinese lucky number… It’s Michael’s lucky number. Sure, it’s really cool to see Michael Phelps mother be so proud of her amazing son, the “greatest Olympian ever”. But what I really loved was watching the faces of family who were there to see their kids compete on the world stage, even though they had no hope of winning gold or even a medal. Here’s to the real heroes! The ones who finished the race that they were hopelessly outmatched in, and whose families were just as proud of them as Michael’s mom.