Do your best

The American DAVE JOHNSON is considered one of the best all-round athletes in the world. His performance in various Decathlons bears this out.

Recently he commented: “With Christ, you never lose. He asks me to do my very best, to give 100%; the results depend on him alone. Even if I come last, I'm glad because I gave it everything I had”.

People want to be best at everything. The world is based on the principle of “the survival of the fittest”, and life seems to be a mad race to be the best of the best.

Coaches demand you do better than everyone else; the crowd screams for it, and the press treats you like dirt if you're not a winner. Even your friends seem to look down their noses if you have a bad day in the field.

When you do well, it's all applause and admiration. People want to be with you and pose with you for photos; but when things go badly, they boo.

No- one wants anything to do with you, your club wants to break your contract and the press asks who the clever fellow was who hired you.

Life is like that: the same people who admire you now criticise you later, because they only want “the best”, the winners, those who get it right all the time. But the minute the “winners" get it wrong, the world looks for a new idol. You always have to be the best.

As I said, life is just like the world of sport. Only the winners, the successful ones, get the prizes. When you're young, only the boys who are good at everything and attract girls get ahead. Only the pretty girls have boyfriends. As you get older, only the best make the big money.

On the other hand, God doesn't seem so demanding; he only wants us to do our best and be brave, in sports, at school, at work, in all we do.

Why? Because he loves us all and doesn't classify people as “best”and “worst”. He cares about whether you do your personal best or not, in all things. It's your choice.