Ordinary Champions

Summer 2008 will be remembered for a number of things. Summer '08 will be remembered as the summer when The Dark Knight (staring the late Heath Ledger in a 'dark' personification of the Joker) shattered most major motion picture box office records; entertainers Bernie Mac, Isaac Hayes (dubbed the Father of Soul) and comedian George Carlin die; the Chicago Cubs remained in first place since (when?); presidential debates/conversations between Barack Obama and John McCain begin in an informal setting with the interviewer being....no, not Larry King or Wolfe Blitzer but by Pastor Rick Warren. Summer '08 will be most remembered by the Beijing Olympics with poster athlete, Michael Phelps taking center stage.

I do not want to make a god out of Michael Phelps but rather, I want to identify one important step that every "ordinary champion" will take. The important step I refer to is, honesty. Hang in there with me! Recently I read a quote from Admiral Bull Halsey, Commander of the Pacific Fleet during World War II, who said, "There aren't any great men. There are just great challenges that ordinary men are forced by circumstances to face and meet." When people talk about champions (like Phelps or Halsey), many of us think of extraordinary accomplishment, tremendous cost or unpredictable and unprecedented success. I want to present a very different step or a decision that champions take. The first step towards becoming an "ordinary champion" is to resist the temptation to be what everybody else wants you to be. Writer May Sarton penned these words,

"I have become myself.

It's taken time, many years and places.

I have been dissolved and shaken,

worn other people's faces..."

My heart resonates deeply with Sarton's words. I have spent too much of my life being what others wanted me to be. Being and saying what pleases others often was my calling card. When anyone lowers themselves to this level of living they are not an "ordinary champion" even though they are pleasing everyone around them. This person, this "people pleaser", is a coward and NOT an ordinary champion. I was interviewed one time by a group of people. Some of the interviewers wanted me to give a stock answer to a particular question. Getting the job could have rested upon my people-pleasing response to their question. By that time in my life I had grown in enough confidence in myself to "tell the truth"--I told them my honest beliefs in response to the question. After the interview one of the people doing the interview came up to me with tears in his eyes and thanked me for being honest enough for holding to my position rather than telling the group what they wanted to hear. (By the way, I got the job!)

In case you've missed it, being an "ordinary champion" begins with you, being you! Fredrick Buechner wrote, "a person's great happiness (and perhaps great accomplishment) occurs when the person's greatest skill or ability comes face to face with the world's great need". If you are not about being you and seeking the passion and the drive that God has placed within you...you will not even "place" in the olympic competition of your life.