For God so loved the world…” (John 3:16, KJV)
I love the Olympics! As I watched the action night and day for two weeks, I discovered I am not as patriotic an American as I thought.
Gold medalist Xander Schauffele’s hat said “USA,” but his father is German and his mother is Chinese but grew up in Japan. If you pull for Xander, that means you are rooting for Germany, Chinese Taipei, Japan, and the USA, all in one.
Then Rory shoots 61 to grab silver. No, not that Rory. You know, the Slovakian guy (smile). That wily veteran Rory Sabbatini had no chance to make his South African team, so he found a Slovakian bride and bingo, he has a silver medal. And don’t forget the epic playoff for third place among seven countries.
Then the women! Nelly Korda wins for USA, but you know the story. Her parents were tennis stars for Czechoslovakia. Japan celebrated silver with a wonderful young woman, Mone Inami, named for a French painter. Lydia Ko won bronze for both New Zealand and her Korean family.
And even though China is America’s main political rival, I find myself pulling for Shanshan Feng every time. Her smile makes me smile.
My new favorite golfer is Aditi Ashok from Bangalore, India, ranked No. 200 in the world. She missed the medal podium by one inch, despite being dead last in driving distance. Or even better: her teammate Diksha Dagar, who is hearing impaired, finished T50. I love those ladies.
Beyond the golf, two Indonesian women made me want to buy a badminton set after they won the gold. An amazing woman from Brazil swam six miles in the open sea, and I was so exhausted watching her that I nearly drowned sitting on my couch. I was all-in with all the Africans, especially the Nigerian table tennis player.
And I was always pulling for Japan, the host nation. I loved it when the Japanese hit a walk-off homer against the USA in baseball and beat the softball Americans for gold. I almost cried watching an intense Tokyo girl lose the gold in kata, a sport I had never even heard of until five minutes before she lost. I hated watching Matsuyama miss those putts at the end.
So why this love affair with the ‘world’? I think it goes back to my days in vacation Bible school. This song we sang there makes me old-fashioned, I know, but do you remember this tune?
Jesus loves the little children
All the children of the world…
Jesus loves the little children of the world.
Are you humming along? If you have never heard the song, google it. The little tune will stick in your head like butter on a hot roll.
The Olympics reminds us that Jesus loves everyone in this world. No one is forgotten.
Jesus loves those Indonesian badminton girls just like the American stars wearing crosses.
And don’t forget, Jesus came mostly for the losers, the quitters, the injured, the brokenhearted. He really loves the people who dreamed of making it to the Olympics but came up a little short, like my javelin-throwing friend Dana Pounds, who once missed her Olympic dream by half an inch. The stories of the winners in Tokyo are amazing, but even better are the stories of all the losers, mostly unknown.
Jesus loves them all. All the children of the world. Click here to see one of my young friends from India with her amen to this message.