Team Work

Tuesday 29.06.17

My granddaughter came today to give a gymnastic display for the ladies, she is part of Team GB, and represented Great Britain in the World championships in Norway, their team won the silver medal. She performed twice for us, in between talking about her experience in Norway, and her four years with the team.

I shared a few thoughts with the ladies afterwards of things I had observed. There must be in this as in any other sport, determination, and deliberation:

Deliberation is the long and careful consideration of a subject.

Daniele, their coach and leader when putting things together must do so with deliberation, with careful thought of how the girls are going to work together, who is the best at what and how it will all work out. And the team must listen, and do as she says if it is to work exactly as she has planned it.

We too must be careful in our Christian walk, in thought, word and deed, keeping our mind on Christ, listening to Him, being guided by His Holy Spirit, will all determine how we work together. Which led me on to determination, the meaning of which is:

A firmness of purpose.

Fanny Crosby wrote a poem when she was eight years old, blinded in infancy she spent most of her 98 years composing over 9,000 hymns. Many of them mentioning a deeper sight than that of our physical vision. We may not all be like my granddaughter, fit and lithe but God can use us, can’t He? Fanny Crosby showed real determination, “to weep and sigh because I’m blind, I cannot and I won’t.”

Oh, what a happy soul I am,
Although I cannot see,
I am resolved that in this world
Contented I will be.

How many blessings I enjoy
That other people don't
To weep and sigh because I'm blind
I cannot nor I won't.

Dedication:

Being committed to a task or purpose.

I think that these young ladies in this group must have real dedication. I have watched a rehearsal and whilst everyone was concentrating on what they were doing, they were also very conscious of who they were working with. And this speaks volumes to me. As a Christian, yes, I should know what the Lord has got for me to do, but I should also be very conscious of the people that I am working alongside. The theme they were rehearsing was the Titanic, and the feeling and emotion in that was amazing, you felt everything they were portraying. And again, that speaks to us, doesn’t it? If we are portraying the life of Jesus then hopefully we will be speaking to those who come into our lives, not only by word but how we live.

We commit our lives to God and He is always faithful, we commit ourselves and our burdens.

Psalm 55:2 Cast your burden on the Lord,

And He shall sustain you;
He shall never permit the righteous to be moved.

We commit our way to the Lord.

Psalm 37:5 Commit your way to the Lord,

Trust also in Him,
And He shall bring it to pass.

Proverbs 16:3 Commit your works to the Lord,

And your thoughts will be established.

This is our life in the Lord, living for Him, our plans only succeed when we walk in His will. The main thing that came to me from this group was the work they put in, the way they worked together, and how they and their leader are committed. One of the group had broken her arm two days before they were to set off for Norway. This of course affected the whole group, and so it is with us, when one of our members suffers, we all feel it don't we? But this seemed to make Team GB even more determined to go on and do as well as they could.

May we in our Christian walk, have deliberation, determination, and dedication, and may we also remember we are not Lone Rangers but are part of the body of Christ, we are a team.