Can an Athlete be Truly Humble?

This morning I was reading from Henry Scougal’s "The Life of God I the Soul of Man." He has some interesting thoughts on humility. I wonder if most people would imagine they don’t have a problem with being humble. Yet, Scougal makes some comments that make me realize how incomplete my own humility levels are (I know, some of you are thinking "Sellers you have every reason to be humble!).

Ever feel slighted by someone? Not respected? Treated short of the esteem we feel we deserve? Likely we all do at times. But check out this quote, "the humble person hath the advantage when he is despised, that none can think more meanly of him than he doth of himself; and therefore he is not troubled at the matter, but can easily bear those reproaches which wound the other to the soul." Wow! I like that. When accused by someone of some perceived shortfall your response can truly be.... "if they only really knew..." The humble knows they’ve got a lot of issues that need changing ("& thanks for the help in pointing them out!").

Maybe this can be a good barometer of our humility quotient.... how easily does criticism roll off your back?


More significantly, humility brings us joy. Scougal states that the greatest satisfaction and sweetness come when at the "lowest prostration of their souls before God, having a deep sense of the divine majesty and glory, they sink to the bottom of their beings, and vanish and disappear in the presence of God."   Cool.   True humility is when we begin to understand our place in relation to the majesty of God. In fact Scougal says it’s impossible to express the great pleasure and delight we experience in this.

I can’t help but compare this to those competitions when everything falls into place and you’re in that psychological bubble where everything feels easy, fun and energizing. In these instances you totally lose yourself. There’s no thoughts about how you look or what others think of you. It’s just pure enjoyment of the present moment. Connecting with God intimately has the same effect. There’s such joy in that moment that its inconceivable to have any thoughts of yourself. They just get swallowed up in Christ’s gloriousness.

One more... Wanna truly be at peace with yourself and others? Then listen to this, "the proud and arrogant person is a trouble to all that converse with him, but most of all unto himself : every thing is enough to vex him; but scarce anything sufficient to content and please him."

I can’t help but feel that so much of our sport pursuits (or any pursuit for that matter) are aimed at propping up the ego...the self. The Christian is to surrender self. But this task is impossible to do on it’s own unless you lose yourself in joyfully revelling in the perfections of Christ. When you do as described by Scougal, then the self naturally and even unconsciously dissolves in His jubilant glory.

I gotta-wanna pray more!

A GOOD GOD AND AVALANCHES

It’s so true that those who want to believe in God find reasons to do so (and there are many); while on the other hand those that don’t want to believe also find reasons not to do so. Ravi Zacharious calls it "a will in search of a reason." Probably the most common excuse for not believing and following God is the age old, "How can a good, all powerful God allow suffering?" Somehow people think they’ve got us believers stuck on this one and for them a way out. Kind of their own personal loophole.

But it’s not as if no one has ever thought about this faith-philosophical dilemma before. It’s a curious fact that professional philosophers, the guys getting paid to think logically, have no problem with evil and suffering and a good, all-powerful God.....even those that don’t believe He exists! They simply reason that this good, all powerful God, that could stop evil from happening, allows it because He has a good reason to.

Interesting that those not sure of this God’s existence clearly see this, how much more those of us that kinda know Him. Know a bit about His ways, His character, His omnipotence...shouldn’t be a problem with us either.

This winter I had an experience that brings some of this home. While backcountry skiing at Roger’s Pass we had some close calls with avalanches. With some Nat’l and Int’l xc and biathlon skiers and two locals and teammates of mine from the Canadian Nat’l Ski Mountaineering team (brought them along to show us the good powder stashes) we embarked on a mission to ski the newly fallen 30+ cm’s of Kootenay pow. While ascending a soon to be steepening slope we heard a couple of whumps, the tell-tale sign you’re about to see a snow pack failure, which we did on the second of those whumps. The snow started sliding and we high tailed it out of there barely avoiding getting caught in the not too extreme avalanche.

With this experience we decided to change our plans and go over to Cheeops mountain. As we ascended the backside, we noticed a party heading up ahead of us and preparing to drop into a very steep, long couloir. With the new snow and high avi rating, perhaps a precarious move. Our line down the mountain was steep, but not crazy. A couple of us mentioned to our hosts that we’d noticed the overhanging cornices that were the size of several large homes just above us. We dropped in and experienced some of the most wonderful powder skiing ever.

Just as we finished our descent the unthinkable happened. I’ll never forget the sound as the steeper couloir that the other skiers were skiing suddenly slid. It was huge. A massive powder cloud signalled that it was time to spring into action and switch our avalanche beacons into "find" mode. It turned out only one of their party was caught in the slide and he ended up on top of the snow, but man, he went for a 2000' ride. One of his skis was totally lost. One elbow was really scraped open by some rocks he hit. Fortunately his un-helmeted head didn’t hit those rocks. Back in the parking lot he was so shaken. He commented how his season was over (I guess he didn’t want to have to ski on 1 ski).

After our first run, just before this all happened we had decided to do another lap. Perhaps we were pushing the envelope, after all, the avi rating was high and we’d had a really good run, it should have been time to go home. However, when the avalanche happened we were all so shaken up we decided to call it a day. We skied out and down the valley with our legs still quaking from the event.

Three days later I thought I’d check the online avalanche report for the Roger’s Pass area and see if this incident was reported. It was, but as I read on the hair started standing up on my neck. The report also described the next chute over-the one we were on. It described how very large cornices gave way and set off a sizable avalanche over very fresh recently laid down ski tracks (ours). The cornice broke off into several smaller sections, but still the size of cars and they rolled all the way down to the valley floor.

Whoa! As I mentioned, our plans were to do another lap. We could have easily been in that steep slope when it all came crashing down. It seems that our new shaken up single skied friend might have saved our lives by taking that ride. Because of that we changed our plans and stayed off the mountain.

Now, if you were to ask him-actually he may have been asking himself, "how could a good God allow his suffering?" After all, he lost a ski (and some skin). Perhaps God had a much greater purpose in that lone skier’s suffering...to save the lives of 6 other skiers.

The funny thing is, if I hadn’t gone back several days later and checked the avi report none of us in our party would have had any clue how close we came to disaster. We would have been totally oblivious to what could have happened.

I sure am glad that our good, all-knowing, all-powerful God isn’t oblivious to the goings on in His Creation and with His children. Most of the time we’ll never see or know the reason why God allows some of the things He does. I guess that’s where faith comes in.