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Slower Can Be Better
The Monday feature of the Worldly Saints blog focuses on a story from the sports world – current or historic. The point is to recognize athletes who are using their sports and athletic abilities to further the kingdom of God or to show how some athletes are wasting their days by not giving God the glory.
This is one of my favorite weeks in the sports year. Not only is today Opening Day for Major League Baseball and the beginning of my team’s World Series defense (the San Francisco Giants), but it is also be the week for the Masters Golf Tournament (the 1st of four majors for the PGA year).
Both golf and baseball are not usually ranked among the favorites of American sports fans. According to a Harris poll done in June 2014, football is still the #1 ranked sport people enjoy and 2 ½ times as popular as baseball. And golf didn’t even make the list.
There are a number of reasons people don’t favor baseball or golf, and there are fewer reasons that are similar in both baseball and golf.
One reason that is given by the critics of both baseball and golf is the pace of play. In other words, those who aren’t fans of baseball and golf could both say they don’t enjoy those sports because the games themselves move too slow. It’s a common complaint I hear when I sit down to watch a baseball game or tell people I am going to watch golf on the weekend.
But sometimes, slower is better.
For example, consider the process of becoming holy. We call it sanctification.
Sanctification is not a once-for-all action. It is a progressive work in your life and it is a purifying progression of actions. The reason it is progressive is we are not perfectly and completely set apart from God and separated from sin yet and will not be completely done so until we are with Him in heaven. But we are involved in sanctification every day of our life. Albert Barnes gives a good working description of sanctification,
“Sanctification in the heart of a Christian is progressive. It consists in his becoming more like God and less attached to the world; in his getting the ascendancy over evil thoughts, and passions, and impure desires; and in his becoming more and more weaned from earthly objects, and attached to those things which are unseen and eternal.”
And as you can imagine, holiness takes time. And holiness will take time, because there is so much to learn about the Lord Jesus Christ, and the sinful heart, as John Calvin says, is a factory of idols. Thus, there is always sin to mortify and righteousness to put on.
As we close, consider this helpful exhortation by A.W. Tozer:
“The Christian is strong or weak depending upon how closely he has cultivated the knowledge of God. Paul was anything but an advocate of the once-done, automatic school of Christianity. He devoted his whole life to the art of knowing Christ (Phil 3:8, 10, 14). Progression in the Christian life is exactly equal to the growing knowledge we gain of the triune God in personal experience. And such experience requires a whole life devoted to it and plenty of time spent at the holy task of cultivating God. God can be known satisfactorily only as we devote time to Him.”
Barnes, Albert, The Gospels (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2001), 357.
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