Hooray for the Olympics!!!

Hello, friends!

Confession: Meg and I haven't been sleeping a ton the past week or so. We're getting up at around the same time but we're not getting to bed until close to midnight. It's been a bit of a struggle getting up in the morning but you won't hear us complaining... Why? BECAUSE IT'S OLYMPIC SEASON!!!

That's right, friends. Meg and I are total Olympics nuts. We love every part of it. It's competition at the highest level. There are heartwarming and inspiring stories from athletes from around the world. There's my boy Rowdy Gaines calling swimming races like his non-existent hair is on fire. The Olympics have it all! (Seriously, Rowdy is the best.)

One of the things that I love about the Olympics has been seeing the US not only dominate but dominate in such a multi-ethnic and diverse fashion. Simone Manuel became the first African-American woman to win Olympic gold for the US in the pool. Ibtihaj Muhammad won a bronze medal for the USA as the first USA olympian wearing a hijab. The US team has White folk, Black folk, Latin@'s, Asian Americans, and multi-racial folk all over the place, and that's just on the track team! It's so great to see that in the midst of a great amount of public racial tension in the US, we can all agree on one thing... The USA is a beast when it comes to athletics.

I've been trying to rack my brain all week about how I was going to turn this post into something deep or related to campus ministry but I've been having some trouble. See, sports/athletics/competition is the one area of life where I have consciously made a decision to not pray for God's favor. I don't pray for my teams to win. I pray against injury but not for dominance. It's my way of making sure that I don't get too deep into a funk if my teams lose. So, while I've been rooting for the USA, I haven't made these Olympics very spiritual.

However, there is one area where I've been praying during these Olympics and that's during the medal ceremonies. I don't remember how many years ago it was I heard a sermon about how we're supposed to pray for our elected officials. For whatever reason, that sermon hit home and I decided that I would try to make that a regular habit. However, I couldn't really figure out how to make that a regular rhythm that would make sense. I settled on the national anthem. I decided that whenever I heard the Star Spangled Banner, I would use that minute and a half or so to pray for our elected officials on the city, state, and federal level. During the Summer Olympics it's also always a presidential election year so I pray for all of our presidential candidates too. Just like with sports, I don't pray for any one candidate to win or lose (although I definitely have my opinions). I pray that every elected official, regardless of their policies or their faith background, will be guided by Jesus and know him better.

Who knows if it has any impact on a wide-scale level. I know it has impact on a personal level. Since the USA has been dominating so much, I've been watching a lot of medal ceremonies where the Star Spangled Banner is played, which means I've been spending a lot of time praying, which has been changing my heart towards some candidates and elected officials. That's not to say that my political views have changed but rather that I'm working on seeing the "other side" as less evil than before. =0).

So, friends, as we finish up these next few days in Rio, watching Bob Costas do his thing and the USA win a few more medals, please join me in praying for our elected officials. Don't pray for folk to win or lose but for God to move in our nation and through our leaders. Maybe we'll see some change as we root our guys and gals to victory.

Have an excellent day!

~Adam