I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, from now on a merited crown awaits me.
All the time most of us are amazed by good athletes like: Michael Jordan, the Williams Sisters, Aggasi, Nadal, and many others. We are amazed by what they achieved, and some of us wish to be as good as they are. But I do not think that many times we realize how many hours they have to spend in practice in order to have those good results.
A couple years ago there was interview with Andre Agasi, who at that time was number one in the world. The year before he was number 120 in the world. One of the question was: What happened that you fell so much in the ranking. Agasi said that he thought that the talent which he has will be enough, that he does not have to put too much effort toward his training. When he started go lower and lower with his ranking he blamed everybody around but not himself. He blamed his coach. But one day he realized what his coach said long time ago: “TALENT ISTSELF IS NOT ENOUGH AND IF HE WANTS TO BE A BETTER PLAYER, HAS TO PRACTICE MORE OFTEN.”
We can change this sentence and put it into our life: “IF I WANT TO BE A GOOD CHRISTIAN I HAVE TO LISTEN TO MY COACH, I HAVE TO PRACTICE MORE OFTEN.”
But who is my coach?
Jesus Christ is our coach, good religious books can be our coach, the Bible is our coach, and Holy Sprit is our coach. Many times our coach is very tough on us because he wants us to exercise every day, and we would claim that we do not have time for this, or we do not want to have time for the SPIRITUAL EXERCISE. We would rather spend our time with our friends, next to TV, or other ways.
Parents are supposed to be the good example of good Christian life to their children, youth to their friends, and we as Christians to the world. In order to be a good Christian we have to have knowledge about our faith, about Jesus Christ. To have up-to-date knowledge we have to read the Bible, and good religious books. To be good Christians we have to exercise our faith. Even the best athlete without exercise will very soon become one of the worst, will be the outsider. The same can happen to us.
Ghandi, the great leader of India said that: Christianity is the most beautiful religion that he ever saw. But when he was asked why he did not convert to Christianity, if Christianity is such a good religion, Ghandi Answered: “I have never met a Christian who spends life according to Christian’s rules.â€
It is sad, but maybe Ghandi met only those Christians who never practiced or stopped to practice their religion, maybe he met only outsiders.
So let us start to exercise more seriously our religion, our faith, than we will be able to repeat after St. Paul: “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, from now on a merited crown awaits me.” Amen.