I've just watched the Women's Individual All Around Final gymnastics competition at the Beijing Olympics and its a bit disconcerting. When you add together the ages of the gold, silver and bronze winners, I'm still older than the combined total. If anything makes you realise that sport is a young person's game, it has to be the Olympics, where this year the youngest competitor is a twelve year old swimmer, two years younger than Great Britain's young diver. Still if it's any consolation, and it's not really, there is a Japanese equestrian competitor who is sixty four and he did compete at the Olympics before, albeit forty four years ago in his home country. I know there are sports where age is less of a barrier to success, such as bowls, shooting, archery, ideally those where competitiveness depends more on skill and experience than on stamina, speed and strength and of course most athletes know when it is time to give way to youth. However the great thing is that the young in this year's games are producing even greater levels of achievement than their predecessors, such is the level of fitness and dedication that they now possess and also the scientific and dietary knowledge available to them and their myriad of coaches and advisors. I listened with interest to one of our local commentators, a former Olympic competitor in the swimming pool, who, as a young boy had watched the great David Wilkie win gold at the 1976 Montreal Olympics and vowed that some day he would swim as fast as the Olympic champion. And of course with great dedication, he did equal Wilkie's time some eight years later. The only trouble was by that stage, Wilkie's world record winning time was two seconds too slow and now such a time wouldn't even have secured a place in either semi final!But it's not just in sport where the young can teach us a thing or two. I've just been reading youngest son's blog over the past few weeks while he is on his eXtreme walk in Ecuador with OMS International and in his writings, his depth of faith is so evident and his understanding of the need to lean on God during his year away is something that I think few of my generation appreciated when we were his age. And it's not just him. I see it all around in many of our young people, that desire to find a deeper personal relationship with God and to be discerning in finding the right road to greater peace and also to a greater commitment to their Maker. For many, it now involves a summer, not lying on the beach, but working with kids in camps, often travelling to foreign countries and living way outside their comfort zone. For others it is a desire to take up roles of responsibility in their churches, to help in worship, to sing, to lead, to make tea, but whatever roles they occupy, to do them with complete commitment. A few will choose to study at a Bible College, to learn more about their faith and maybe as a prerequisite to a vocation either at home or abroad but whatever they choose, it is so refreshing to see them wear their faith on their sleeve. Not for them any hidden Christianity, not for them any embarrassment at awkward questions from friends, not for them Jesus being second best.
I thought about a lot of these young kids today as they waited anxiously for their A level grades that would decide their immediate future and I thought of all those whom I know and what the next year might bring for them. Yes there will be those for whom God will become a distant thought, who may leave behind the comfort zones of their church or youth group and there may be some who will never venture along that path again. And I'm reminded of the writer of Ecclesiastes who said 'Remember your Creator in the days of your youth, before the days of trouble come and the years approach when you will say, "I find no pleasure in them". ' And I think of how if we have truly given our lives to God in complete repentance and faith, that he will never let us go and will never stop loving us, even when we choose a different path for a while. He is like the shepherd searching for His lost sheep, because the sheep already belongs to Him and He is just not prepared to lose it. Isn't that great to know, especially for you parents out there, when you have to let your child make their own way in life, that the Creator they knew personally in the days of their youth, hasn't left them and they still live in His grace.
I listened to our Minister for Education today, who has less qualifications than most of the children around her but who could probably beat them at tennis or on quizzes about Colombia and she did manage to say something I agreed with for once when she pointed out that even if some young people don't get the grades they want, there is more than one pathway to their chosen career. The same is not true however concerning the way to God for His Son makes it quite clear when he says in John 14, 'I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.' And the good news is that age is never a barrier.
