What Validates You?

 Now that the Olympic flame has been extinguished and the athletes are on their way home, I've taken some time to reflect on what I witnessed for the last two weeks. I have always loved the Olympics since I was kid because I loved the displays of pride in country, competitive excellence, personal triumph, and good sportsmanship that I get to see during the coverage. Even if you're not a sports person, the Olympics reveal some very compelling stories about human nature and life. That's probably the thing I look forward to the most. Because it proves that, while I will never find myself competing for a gold medal, I have more in common with the athletes than I realize - that often, as human beings, we all walk similar paths on our way to discovering what truly matters in life. 

 Which brings me to a question that kept coming up in various different ways during the last two weeks - while the personal journeys to the Olympics varied, there seemed to be a continuous quest to answer the idea of what validates you? What gives meaning to your life? 

 Contrast the stories of a few different Olympians I saw... 

One competitor has achieved pretty much everything in her sport possible: numerous international wins, she's been to multiple winter Olympic games and won multiple medals. She's helped to raise awareness for her sport in many ways and she's looked up to a role model for many other competitors - she's even been around long enough to compete against some of those who once looked up to her and formed dreams of their own. In the eyes of the world, she has it all. But she's admitted she struggles with depression. She takes anti-depressents for her emotional lows, and she says that competition the only place she feels like she knows who she is. It's the one place she feels like she is enough. A recent interview with her at her home showed trophy cases upon trophy cases of success filling the house - reminders of all her achievements. But I wonder if she feels as though those are her identity. As if that's the only success she's ever been able to find. It makes me ask myself if her sport is what validates her. As her career is coming to a close, I am interested to know where she goes from here. Will a life outside of competition be enough for her? Can she find fulfillment in relationships, community, and the most valuable things in life apart from being known as a Olympian? 

 Another competitor has also achieved Olympic success: he's been to multiple Olympic winter games and also won two gold medals. He's dominated his sport in between Olympics, winning many other national and international competitions. But he's also made a life for himself outside his sport. He's happily married to his wife of 7 years and has two young children. He is also a children's story book author and makes time to be active in his local church as a youth group leader. He's put faith at the center of his existence and is not afraid to share his beliefs with others. God is his identity and, from that, flows everything else. The Olympics are not his chief end, although he works extremely hard to compete with excellence and enjoys every win that comes his way. He's dealt with some difficult life experiences in recent years that have shaped how he looks at both success and failure. He's learned from both. In an interview at his home prior to leaving for the Olympics a few weeks ago, he showed the interviewer his medals. They're in a case tucked back in a room in his home, very modestly displayed with little fanfare. He told the interviewer that he's kind of emotionally detached from his medals because he feels as though they don't entirely belong to him - too  many people helped him get where he's at today for him to take sole credit for all of his success. He added that his talent is God's gift to him anyway and that "He has a right to take it away at any time." 

 Both of these athletes have done well in the eyes of what the world deems worthy, but both seemed to have arrived at different conclusions when it comes to their success. One appears to need constant reminders of her worth to make her feel "enough" while the other tells people readily that his family, his faith, and his life outside the sport are of far more value to him than any medals or fame. One still struggles to answer that question of validation. The other seems to have found the answer. 

 One other athlete experienced both sides of this struggle and opened up in a press conference at these most recent Olympics about his personal journey. Four years ago, he became a bronze medalist in his sport and was thrust into the attention his success had garnered him at the games. Somebody he'd always looked up to in his sport (who had also achieved great Olympic and world success) had told him a few years before that "once you get that Olympic medal, it'll change your life forever. You'll have everything you've always wanted once that happens." This young man believed what he'd heard and lived it up. But then reality started to sink in once the Olympic fever subsided and things started going back to normal. He found himself in the midst of deep depression. Things got so bad he actually contemplated killing himself. Ironically, the guy who had given him the advice that a medal would validate him had actually committed suicide himself shortly after saying those words to this young man. He now found himself at the exact same place his role model at taken his own life and now contemplated doing the same. Thankfully, he placed a call to his parents and never went through with the suicide attempt but got help instead and went to therapy for his emotional and addictive issues. Four years later, he was back at the Olympics. This time, however, he was a different person. One who had turned his life over to God and knew that a medal isn't all there is. He won a silver this time but was quick to point out that the gift of life was of far more value to him than any medal. He loves what he does, but he knows that isn't all there is. He wants to be good at living, not just winning. And he's told many other athletes who look up to him that Olympic glory isn't what validates you. He's out to communicate the truth about success after having been cheated several years ago into thinking that was the goal of his existence.

 I'm sure you and I will never find ourselves on a world stage competing for medals and chasing dreams in such a public way. But we each have situations over the course of our life where we are faced with the pressure of others (or within ourselves) to make worldly achievement the focus and source of our validation and acceptance. That job position, that amount of monetary income, that sports trophy...whatever it is, when made the sole aim of our talents and our desires, it becomes not just a goal, but it becomes our identity. It becomes who we are, and we feel incomplete without it. We feel we've failed if we don't achieve that. Quite simply, it takes the place of God and becomes our idol. 

 If we're going to go against this mentality and seek our worth in something greater than this world, we're going to have to get used to the misunderstanding of others. Most people won't get it when you walk away from the promotion you (supposedly) deserve or have worked hard for, when you turn down a lucrative future in order to do something else God has for you, when you make a decision that's detrimental (in the world's eyes) to your career or future in order to put faith and family first. Life with God, when we chase it, will seem illogical to our culture. People will tell you that it doesn't make sense. And, from a human perspective, it might not - even to you at first. But if our identity is found in the One who holds our destiny...if our acceptance is found in a King who laid aside his crown to go the cross for our sake...if our validation is found in the fact that we matter to Him deeply and that His fierce love for us trumps even that of the dearest people we know on earth...than somehow, it's easier to put success into perspective. Because achievement isn't really about us in the first place. Our giftings are merely on loan to us from our Creator, and it's up to us to invest them properly and develop them. Knowing full well that He can take those giftings away at any time and that whatever we attain here on earth in terms of worldly accolades and success won't mean a thing in eternity. Only what's done for Jesus will last. And to me, that's what matters the most.