God at 5000 Meters

If you watched much of the recently completed Olympics, you are left with quite a few wonderful memories, However, the one that still sticks out for me came during a qualifying heat in the women’s 5000 meter race when Nikki Hamblin from New Zealand and Abbey D’Agostino from the United States collided on the track, both of them tumbling to the ground. D’Agostino was the first one up, encouraging Hamblin to get up and to finish the race, but it was D’Agostino who was the most seriously injured, collapsing back onto the track moments later. Hamblin returned the favor, the two of them helping each other to finish the race. They came in last in the standings, but in my eyes, winners in ways that really count.

In interviews afterwards, D’Agostino attributed her reaction to God. “Although my actions were instinctual at that moment,” she said in a statement, “the only way I can and have rationalized it is that God prepared my heart to respond that way.” And that’s a wonderful way to rationalize what she and Hamblin experienced on the track—that it was an experience of God.

Indeed, it is my belief that is exactly the sort of thing that God does. That is, it is my belief that God gets us to take the focus off ourselves, and God gets us to focus on others around us who need some compassion, some encouragement, some help. It’s the job of religious practice to make that shift in focus almost instinctual. And any religious practice that doesn’t do that basic job is, at best, pointless, it seems to me—at worst, far worse.

“By far the best part of my experience of the Olympics has been the community it creates, what the Games symbolize,” D’Agostino went on in her statement. “Since the night of the opening ceremonies, I have been so touched by this—people from all corners of the globe, embracing their unique cultures, yet all uniting under one celebration of the human body, mind, and spirit. I just keep thinking about how that spirit of unity and peace is stronger than all the global strife we’re bombarded with and saddened by on a daily basis.”

No matter what the sport, if you want to point your kids to an athlete whose performance they should emulate, I can’t think of a better direction to point than towards Nikki Hamblin and Abbey D’Agostino—God at 5000 meters—winning in the way that really counts.

--Pastor Don Steele