Racquets and Reflections

My dad and I have begun a workout regimen in my last few weeks at home, something of a late New Year's resolution. So the other day we got up, determined to exercise but too tired to convince ourselves to run. So my father suggested Racquetball. "It's great exercise!" he assured me. So he retrieved his old equipment and off we went and reserved for ourselves a racquetball court.

What can I say about racquetball? It is, as my father said, great exercise. My dad gave me a few pointers, told me in general how the game works, and so the game began. It took me quite a while to get the hang of it, but I finally got to the point where I thought to myself, "Hey, I'm doing pretty good!" Soon after that, of course, my dad enlightened me to the rest of the rules of the game, and it became much more difficult all over.

So I found myself running back and forth in that little court, swinging wildly at a ball that, for the most part, evaded me. (Interestingly enough, even little rubber balls can tell that I am exceptionally short, and ridicule me for it by always whizzing by three feet above my head. I would have told it that it was by far much shorter than I, but it was too busy defying gravity to listen to me.)

I will tell you, at that point it stopped being fun. I was so frustrated. I could not hold the racquet correctly. I could not figure out where the ball was going. I could not hit the ball. I could not reach the ball. I could not hit the ball in the direction I wanted it to go the few times I did hit it. After another half hour of this, my frustration levels always growing, I watched the ball bounce off the walls and realized that the ball, the walls, and the racquets were all this game was about, and yet all I was thinking about was myself. I had to recognize that if I was entirely focused, not on the game, but on my inability to play it, there was no way to be at all successful. Suffice to say, the last two minutes of that game were a thousand times more enjoyable than the hour before.

In Mark 8:34-35, Jesus tells a crowd of his followers, "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it." Jesus, as he so often does, seems to be pointing out such an important principle, one that I could certainly stand to hear over and over again: that focusing on myself, my life and my needs and my problems and my faults, in the end will doom me to whatever I might be trying to avoid. But focusing on the things I live for: Jesus himself, his life and his message, actually gives me a much greater return for what little effort I offer. If, as they say, you become what you focus on, I'd much rather become more like Jesus than more like my flaws.

Truly His,
Caroline