On Competition

(This repost is in celebration of summer vacations in Michigan.)

People love sports. People relish the thrill of victory. Winner!

People love games. Board games continue to be popular. Card games haven’t gone away. Some people love video gaming to the point of addiction.

Competition! I win; you lose. You win; I lose.

While competition may have its place as a play thing, it is a dangerous toy.

Competition compares my score to yours, my ability to yours, my success to yours.

When dealing with the topic of pride, what he called the Great Sin, C. S. Lewis wrote, “Pride is essentially competitive—is competitive by its very nature—while the other vices are competitive only, so to speak, by accident. Pride gets no pleasure out of having something, only out of having more of it than the next man. We may say that people are proud of being rich, or clever, or good-looking but they are not. They are proud of being richer, or cleverer, or better-looking than others. It is the comparison that makes you proud:  the pleasure of being above the rest.” (Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis)

And there is more.  A fellow pastor commented, “Comparison is the thief of joy.”  I am glad for what I have until I see that yours is better.

By some odd happenstance I ended up with a boat. It was a bigger, better and more beautiful boat than I ever thought I would have. We lived by Spring Lake which empties out into Lake Michigan. That area serves as a mecca for boating and water sports. I confess I envied those who were able to take advantage of the water with their boats.

But now I had one. 

It was a spectacular experience to take my own boat, a “real” boat, a beautiful boat out onto the water and join the flotilla.

Joy!

By the third time on the water the joy diminished. I was noticing bigger boats.

Avoid a competitive spirit. Resist a competitive spirit. Turn off a competitive spirit. Competition fosters pride and throttles joy.

Seek something… better, higher, more ennobling.

Instead of trying to be the best IN THE WORLD, seek to be the best FOR THE WORLD.  Replace a spirit of competition with a spirt of servanthood.

If there is a “biblically sanctioned” competition this is it: “Let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works.”  (Hebrews 10:24) This “competition” throttles pride and fosters joy.