(This article courtesy of Agape Press.)
Be Strong in the Lord
Their strong Christian faith is a second common element for the trio of stars. All three made sharing their faith a public practice — and all three gained some valuable insights that should challenge others who are thinking about resolutions for the new year.
Bolton-Holifield told Christian Sports Minute's Doug Greengard this fall, “When your faith is tested on your own and with the decisions you have to make, you need to be strong in the Lord.” Bolton-Holifield, who now plays guard for the Women's NBA Sacramento Monarchs, was 1991 USA Basketball Female Athlete of the Year. She won gold medals in the 1996 and 2000 Olympics.
In the Greengard interview, she identified some guidelines for maintaining a strong faith: keep Jesus in the center of everything you do, appreciate the small things in life, stay faithful to God in the tough times, and ask God to give you joy. “We have to play the way God wants us to play, to go out there and play with victory and not let the outcome of the score determine your joy,” she concluded.
Family Comes First
In 1984, 16-year-old Mary Lou Retton rocked the Olympic and sports worlds as the first American to win gold in the women's all-around gymnastics competition. She added two silver and two bronze medals to win the most medals of any athlete in the 1984 games.
Now as a mother of three, she is outspoken about her strong Christian faith, outlined in her book Mary Lou Retton's Gateways to Happiness (written with David Bender). She recently told ThriveOnline that her book identifies seven gateways she believes are necessary to achieve personal happiness — family, faith, relationship, attitude, discipline, health and laughter.
“I listed family first,” Retton said, “because it's the first gateway that we're opened up to from birth. We have no choice in the matter of who our parents are.” She encourages others to take those gateways seriously and work on them as critical elements for spiritual health.
Use Your Talents for God
Eric Liddell was Scotland's wonder boy in the 1924 Olympic games in Paris, France. His story has been widely chronicled, but his fame mushroomed in 1981 when the movie Chariots of Fire told his story on the big screen. It won the Academy Award for Best Picture.
Liddell was already preparing for the mission field when he went to the '24 games, but he believed God had given him a gift to run, and he used the platform to be a witness. In fact, he refused to run in his best event because it was scheduled on Sunday. A few days later, he set a world record and won gold in the 400 meters, a race in which he was not expected to do well.
In later years, as a missionary in China, Liddell wrote Manual of Christian Discipleship, a guidebook for Chinese clerics. In it, he identified the questions he used to guide him through his morning quiet time:
1. Have I surrendered this new day to God, and will I seek and obey the guidance of the Holy Spirit throughout its hours?
2. What have I specially to thank God for this morning?
3. Is there any sin in my life for which I should seek Christ's forgiveness and cleansing? Is there any apology or restitution to make?
4. For whom does God want me to pray this morning?
5. What bearing does this morning's Bible passage have on my life, and what does He want to do about it?
6. What does God want me to do today and how does He want me to do it?
All three Olympic gold medalists demonstrated the discipline one must have to win Olympic gold. We might do well to heed their advice for winning spiritual gold in 2003.
