Book Excerpt from The Christian Athlete: Glorifying God in Sports by Brian Smith.

“God, what do you even want from me as an athlete?”

I wish I would have asked that question and listened for a response instead of just telling him what I wanted when it came to my sport.

I recited one Bible verse before every cross-country race in high school and college. And no, it wasn’t Philippians 4:13. I figured everyone else was using that one so I would try something different in an attempt to stand out.

Besides, I prayed the “Philippians prayer” (I can do all things through Christ!) during basketball season. Distance running deserved a running verse.

My pre-race prayer came from Isaiah:

They who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength;

they shall mount up with wings like eagles;

they shall run and not be weary;

they shall walk and not faint. (40:31)

It’s hard to tell if God ever answered the prayer the way I hoped. Racing never felt easy, and my legs often felt like I was carrying a rhinoceros as the finish line approached. That’s a far cry from the experience of mounting an eagle, whatever that’s supposed to mean.

The truth is, I never fully understood what God wanted from me when it came to applying my faith to my sport. Praying before competition seemed like a good start. But what else did God want from me?

I’m guessing you’re reading this because you’re asking yourself a similar question: How do I integrate my faith with my sport? How do I do this sport in a way that honors God?

The purpose of this book is to answer that question. I’ve written this from a biblical perspective aimed at helping you glorify Jesus Christ in every facet of your sport.

This book is for you, the athlete. Not your coach. Not your parents. Not your fans. Athlete, consider this book an assist from me to you.

With that being said, though, I know others involved in sports can benefit from what’s laid out in this book. That list includes but is not limited to coaches, athletic directors, athletic administrators, and parents of kids involved in sport. If that’s you, I’m going to refer to you as “coach.” At the end of each chapter, after reflection questions for athletes, I provide additional ones for coaches to work through.

Speaking of coaches, in this book I sometimes refer to the darker side of coaching. In no way am I insinuating that all coaches act in those ways.

My aim in The Christian Athlete is to biblically shape the way you think about your sport and present a practical approach to having a God-centered perspective for every challenge the world of athletics throws at you. I rely heavily on the Word of God and my own experience both as a former competitive athlete and as a coach who has been working with and discipling college athletes since 2006.

The first chapter addresses what God ultimately wants from us.

After laying the groundwork, we’ll look through the different circumstances brought about by sports and seek to understand how we can glorify God in each of them. We will explore potentially new ways of experiencing, appreciating, and practicing obedience to God in the middle of all the circumstances athletes face—motivation, pressure, winning, losing, injuries, practice, teammates, riding the bench, gray areas, coaches, and retirement.

Finally, we’ll see how the mission and platform afforded to athletes offer a unique opportunity to spread the gospel. With that in mind, I’ll give you practical training to leverage your privileged position for the glory of God and the advancement of his kingdom.

We need to learn to make our sport something that draws us closer to God. We were created with a longing that cannot be filled by anything or anyone but God. There will always be a ceiling on the amount of happiness earthly things can bring us, and more often than not, we will be disappointed at how low that ceiling is.

That will be a continual theme of this book. Sports are a good gift from God to us to enjoy, but we can’t expect something from them—like soul-filling joy and contentment—that God never intended. Only he can provide those eternal longings inside us.

Ecclesiastes 3:11 says that God has put eternity in our hearts. The implication is simple: we cannot be satisfied by earthly things. When we use our sport to get more of God, we align ourselves with the way God intended his good gifts, like sports, to work. And in the end, we also get the maximum amount of joy out of our sport. As we grow in our understanding of that, we are freed up to enjoy sports for what they are (a good gift from God) instead of trusting them for what they can never give (ultimate purpose, meaning, and satisfaction).

“God, what do you even want from me as an athlete?” That’s the subject of the first chapter.