Sports Liars

There exist in sport two liars of the highest order. They lie to novices and to sport's most highly achieving. They lie to both the obscure and the most famous. These liars fluently speak every language on the earth and deceive without conscience or conviction. They both whisper and shout with equal effectiveness. These masters of deception never tire, never take a day off and never worry about being caught. They monitor every practice, match, game and even one's most private thoughts and emotions.



Success and Failure lie to our souls about our identity, our worth to and our standing before God. Those who achieve highly hear Success's lies related to the unimportance of ethical issues, teamwork and character. Failure lies by stating that even one's margin of victory may be a failure because the spread is deemed to have been insufficient.




Both Success and Failure are measured by the World in terms of results as expressed in wins and losses, points per game, home runs, yards per carry, championships won, world records, batting averages, strike outs, earned run average, and on and on and on. Success and Failure speak truthfully about one’s performance. There is truth in their descriptions of the game’s final score and the endless list of statistics which accompany sports today. The problem for many of us is how Success and Failure spin those results into lies related to who we are and from where we derive our personal worth.




Success lies by inflating our sense of importance. It says, "I must be the best player on the court today." "My team could never do without me. I can do whatever I please." "I don't care what the others do, I will get mine today." "I must have God's favor because we're winning." It flatters us with words which excite our egos by reciting our accomplishments and comparing us to those lesser souls not faring so well. "My success is obviously the mark of God's approval." "If the Lord was not so pleased with me, I would not be winning like this." Success lies to your soul as it mimics the voices of sycophantic fans, hangers on, groupies and fawning media.




Success distorts the truth of our identity by telling us that it's to be found in achievement. Its greed is never satisfied. Success deceives our souls' sense of worth by whispering that performance makes us worthy of love and dignity; that losers are not worthy of such delights. It tries to convince us that wins are the indicators of a life in Christ. Lies one and all.




Failure's condemning voice whispers in our soul's ear, "You're not good enough." "You can't compete at this level." "You should just quit." "You aren't worthy to wear this uniform." Failure shouts at us when we're running on the pitch, "You can't guard this player, she'll embarrass you." It laughs heartily as we stumble and fall, the pain in our body echoing Failure's derisive comments.




Worse still are Failure's accusations that our lack of success is a sign of God's displeasure. "You must have sinned badly to have failed so miserably." "God is angry with you; that's why you struck out three times today." "A real Christian wouldn't play this badly." "Maybe God wants you to give up this silly game and get on with more important things." "If you were a better Christian, you would be more successful than this."




Failure assaults us in the condemning voices of the coaches from our past who used shame to motivate, our never satisfied parents or angry teammates. These voices remind us of our most bitter failures and disappointments.




Failure lies by distorting the truth of our unlimited value to Christ (Romans 5:8), our identity in Him (Ephesians 1:3-14) and our being totally without condemnation before him (Romans 8:1).




All these lies gnaw at our souls, impeding our progress as lovers of God and hindering our Lord's gift of fulfilling enjoyment of sport. Both Success and Failure speak these lies with equally damaging consequences to our hearts, minds and souls.




There is more wisdom to be found by focusing our hearts and minds on the process of training, competition, personal and team development in sport. Take care to listen wisely to the reports of success and failure. Understand that statistics, win/loss ratios and other measurements of sporting achievement speak truthfully about performance, but they lie about identity, worth and significance. These can only be found in an abiding relationship with Christ Jesus.