Better Than Olympic Gold.

But He knows the way I take; 

When He has tried me, I shall come forth as gold.

Job 23:10

Last week in Chicago over 170 U.S. Olympic athletes, who recently competed in the summer games in Beijing, gathered in Chicago’s Millennium Park for the taping of the season premiere of the Oprah Show. The show will be aired on Monday, September 8. Basketball stars Kobe Bryant and Dwayne Wade, gymnast Shawn Johnson, five-time Olympic swimmer Dara Torres, decathlon gold medalist, Bryan Clay, and the man of the Olympics—eight-time gold medal swimmer Michael Phelps—were there.

Winfrey planned to ask the Olympians questions like what does it feel like to achieve their Olympic dreams? What does it take to be the best in the world? What’s next for these world-class athletes?

All of the Olympic athletes who participated in this summer’s games gave it their all not only to compete in the games, but to win. Many of the athletes, however, did not win gold or medal at all.

Better than Gold.
Gold and medals reminded me of what Job reminded himself about God.  “But He knows the way I take; When He has tried me, I shall come forth as gold” (Job 23:10).  Job, a man who was “blameless, upright, feared God and shunned evil”, was not competing in the Olympics, but he did face tests in his life (Job 1:1, 8). He lost family (seven sons and three daughters), home, and livelihood (7,000 sheep, 3,000 camels, 500 yoke of oxen, 500 female donkeys, and very many servants), but he still did not deny faith in God.

 
As I look at how Job responded to the trials that came into his life, I am encouraged.  He knew God and trusted Him. That’s why he could say, “But He (God) knows the way I take.”  Job was confident in the end result that through the trials that he faced he would “come forth as gold.”

For the life of a Christian, trials and suffering should be expected.  “For it has been granted to you on behalf of Christ not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for him” (Philippians 1:29). But trials are for our good. "Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything” (James 1:2-4).

Trials cause us to see our dependence on the Lord, grow us in our faith in Him, and conform us to be more like Christ.  Peter writes that our faith in Christ is more valuable than gold.  “In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by—may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.” (1 Peter 1:6-7)

Even though we will most likely not compete in the Olympics or win a medal, if we are a believer in Jesus Christ we have something better than a gold—faith in the Lord Jesus Christ which is a gift from God.  “For by grace you have been saved through faith; and 1that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God” (Ephesians 2:8).