Electronic Touchpad for Life

Life seems more like gymnastics than a race. But I think I’d prefer a race.

When Michael Phelps won the Olympic 100-meter butterfly by one-hundredth of a second, the electronic touchpad provided a clear, black-and-white decision. Even more than the slow-motion photography, electronics removed all shadows of doubt.

In gymnastics, diving, and tumbling, by contrast, the decisions are made by a complicated system of difficulty ratings and judges’ points. The variation between judges sometimes makes you wonder if they’re looking at the same competitor, or creates questions about objectivity. How can one individual’s dive be rated both a 6 and a 9 by different judges?

It sometimes feels as though we’re being rated in how we live. Did the way I treated my husband today deserve a 9.5, or was it only worth a 7.0? Was the lunch-table conversation with my co-workers worthy of a gold medal, or would we have been out of medal contention?

Fortunately, the only judge that matters in life is God. And He doesn’t play favorites, or use a complicated scoring method. In fact, He really has given us an electronic “touchpad,” of sorts. All He asks is that we “touch” His Son, Jesus Christ. “Jesus answered, ‘I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me’” (John 14:6, NIV).

If we receive Christ as Savior and seek to follow Him in all we do, we don’t have to worry about the score. All God asks is that we put forth the effort. He doesn’t judge us on how well we do, just that we ran the race.

But a “no decision” is a “no” decision. There are no silver or bronze medals when we die. Either we place our faith in Jesus and get to spend eternity with Him, or we don’t, and we will be separated from God forever.

“Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize” (1 Corinthians 9:24, NIV).