Olympic gymnast Gabby Douglas has not stopped smiling. She has won two gold medals, the first gymnast in American history to win gold in both the team competition and all-around. She has also fallen off the beam in the finals. There is a joy within her that many cannot understand, because it is not dependent on her performance. It is radiating from grace embedded firmly in her heart.
In the first television interview I saw with her, the journalist asked her why she was not a bundle of nerves. Gabby remarked that she had been meditating on Scripture passages and that God was her strength. This was not a cheap advertisement for God, but a revealing of her inner core, that which truly motivates and energizes her. She is at the Olympic games for a purpose deeper than gaining medals for her country; she is there to glorify God.
Here is a short video filmed right before she left to compete in the games. She loves the LORD, strives to do all things with excellence, and makes that evident in all that she does.
As a friend of ours who competed as a cyclist in Europe once told us: “We discovered that God did not need our successes to bring Him glory.”
And so with little Gabby. People are not just watching how you achieve a medal, but how you respond when you don’t.
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