Seth Carter

In 1988 the Winter Olympics were hosted in the city of Calgary, in Alberta, Canada. The four-man bobsled event received a surprise when Jamaica entered the competition! Bobsledders — or any winter athletes — from a tropical island nation like Jamaica may have seemed almost laughable. While the athletes were serious and committed, they didn’t have a lot of time to get to Olympic-level training and were not serious contenders for a medal. Their final run that year almost ended in tragedy when they fell out of a turn too high and the sled overturned. Thankfully the whole team was able to walk away from the wreck with dignity.

Cool Runnings, a movie very loosely based on this team, depicts the team and this event in a moving scene where they hoist the sled to their shoulders and walk it across the finish line, solidifying themselves as athletes of integrity and grit.

I like these types of stories because they inspire me to want to be … more, to strive and succeed. I don’t like these types of stories because they make me question if I have what it takes.

Perhaps we all at times ask, “Am I enough, am I adequate for what’s in front of me?” 

Often we carry this way of thinking into our faith, wondering if God will accept me, how much do I have to do to be noticed, accepted or favored by him?

If this is you, I have good news! This is not the message the Bible delivers! 

It seems that the good folks in the church at Corinth may have been asking some questions about the apostle Paul’s credentials, or maybe just trying to figure out how to defend him to their friends. So he wrote to them in the letter of 2 Corinthians 3:4-6:

“Such confidence we have through Christ toward God. Not that we are adequate in ourselves to consider anything as coming from ourselves, but our adequacy is from God, who also made us adequate as servants of a new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.”

God wants to be known by us and is willing to adopt us, and even desires that we would call him, “Abba, Father,” Romans 8:15-16 said. 

The invitation is also found in the first chapter of John’s gospel, John 1:12, “But as many as received him, to them he gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in his name.” 

We aren’t obligated, or able, to make ourselves better in God’s estimation or earn our place or identity with him. However, Paul said we can have “confidence through Christ toward God.” Our adequacy does not come from us, from anything we can do, but God is making us “adequate as servants of a new covenant.”

A little later in 2 Corinthians 5:17, Paul goes so far as to say that if someone comes to Christ, to surrender their life to him and submit to his authority, they become a new creation: old things will pass away out of their life and new things come! 

In a small way, the Jamaican athletes remind me of this. What made them an inspiring team (at least the movie version) was not an underdog story of them winning a medal. Their “adequacy” as it were, came from something inside them, their character, not something outside like talent or a winning season. They didn’t reach an accomplishment that propelled them into stardom.

In our life, our adequacy can also come from inside, specifically Christ living in us, if we will recognize our need for him and invite him to become the boss. Further into this letter of 2 Corinthians in chapter 12 verses 8-10, Paul describes a specific weakness or torment he experienced that could have been debilitating and he asked God several times to be delivered from it. God’s answer to him was, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.” So Paul decided to rejoice, even boast in his affliction, “so that the power of Christ may dwell in me.” 

He knew that he could learn to be content in whatever state for the sake of Christ, because there, living in what some might call weakness, he was strong in Christ’s life and power.

God sits waiting for you to call out to him, acknowledging your sin and weakness so that he can show his power through you too!

(Seth Carter is director of Campus Ventures in Powell.)