The Special Olympics Got Game Too

Eunice Kennedy Shriver passed away on Tuesday August 11,2009. She was the founder of the Special Olympics and a lifetime advocate for people with intellectual disabilities. The Special Olympics is a movement of sports training and athletic competition for those that have intellectual disabilities. Shriver believed that people with intellectual disabilities deserve the same opportunities and experiences as others.
No matter what the disability, a person still has a talent, a skill, and a gift to give to the world when encouraged doing so. Using sports as a display of abilities brings about respect, acceptance and inclusion. Persons with disabilities benefit by seeing in themselves that they too have talents and it helps them to feel better about themselves. It also serves as a teaching tool to those who may have thought that disabled people were useless until they were afforded the opportunities to witness their grand performances.
The venue of sports has a way of bringing people together from all walks of life, nationalities, cultures, races and backgrounds. Along with the exercises, discipline and vigorous training that it takes to be athletically fit to play a specific sport; building character, strength, strong muscles, and team work.
No wonder the Bible is full of metaphors that compare the Christian life to that of an athlete. Since everyone seems to be able to relate to sports, God used these metaphors to help us understand the Christian life. No matter what physical or mental state we are in, we all have talents, skills, and gifts that have been given to us by God. But many times we are not encouraged to use them or to even find out what they are. Which is especially frustrating for those that have disabilities. Instead we must go after them, train, and master our skills like an athlete does for his specific sport. Athletes know what their talents and skills are and will train in that specific sport. Some people spend their time going after a talent that they do not have because they like it. Or because someone else has the talent that they want. But not athletes, they will not train in a sport that they do not have the talent for. They are content with their own God given abilities and not the abilities that someone else has. They know that they can find their significance and place in society by using their own God given talents and skills. Which is what Eunice Kennedy Shriver did to help the intellectually disabled find their significance through the Special Olympics.

S.E.Gregg
www.Christianolympics.org

Who Are The Spiritual Superstars ?

Superstars are celebrities who are well known, in fact, everyone knows him or her. Celebrities are people that have fame, are renown, widely recognized, famous and are well-publicized people. They are household words. When you say his or her name everyone knows whom you are talking about. What makes them superstars is that there is no one like them, they are the best at what they do. No one can top them. Superstars are very successful and the best in their particular field, having accumulated a lot of wealth and material gain. You know that you are a celebrity with superstar status when you become a sensation for the tabloids. Get followed around aggressively by the paparazzi and be courted by the media, like such superstars as Michael Jackson, Queen Elizabeth, Michael Phelps, and Oprah Winfrey. .

But who are the Spiritual Superstars?

Spiritual superstars are also well known and very successful and the best in their particular field. They also have fame, are renown, widely recognized, famous and are well-publicized people. They are household words. When you say his or her name everyone knows whom you are talking about.

But spiritual superstars’ fame and renown recognition is in heaven around the throne of God. And God Himself publicizes it giving them wide recognition. A perfect example would be a man in the Old Testament of the Bible that all of heaven was talking about, whom God considered to be His servant, and his name was Job. A book in the Bible is named after this spiritual superstar

He was from the land of Uz and was a very wealthy man.”...the greatest of all the men of the east.” (Job 1:3). And “.. that there is none like him in the earth,...”(Job 1:8) because he was a perfect man who was upright, who feared God, and the type of man that would turn away from anything that was evil. Here we see that he met the criteria of being a superstar because there was no other person like him in the world. He was the best in his service to God. The world may not have considered him a celebrity or superstar. People living on the earth may have never heard of him during a particular time of his life. But God had the whole host of heaven talking about Job Job’s name became a heaven hold word. When Job’s name was mentioned in heaven everyone knew whom they were talking about.

Job was a spiritual superstar just because of the simple fact that he feared God. His status of superstardom caused him to be treated just like a celebrity by the way he was watched and followed by the tabloids and the paparazzi.

Because Satan was like and still is the tabloid reporter walking around the earth looking for a scandal to present something sensational about a spiritual superstar. And he and his demons are the paparazzi that follow the spiritual superstars relentlessly everywhere they go hoping to catch them doing something that will discredit their superstardom. As in the case of Job, when God was proudly bragging to Satan about His spiritual superstar, it was revealed that Satan had been aggressively following. Job. And had figured out a way to knock Job from his spiritual superstar status. God allowed Satan to go ahead with his scheme to destroy every material thing that Job had along with his children. But in the midst of his tragedy, Job remained faithful to God and kept his spiritual superstar status. As if that was not enough, Satan had another scheme and that was to cause Job to become sick with excruciating, endless pain. And again God gave His permission and though Job suffered he still remained God’s spiritual superstar. Because he endured the pain, suffering, criticism and the ridicule that often follows a superstar, along with the false accusations, the humiliation and the isolation.

After a period of time, God healed Job, blessed him, and gave Job more riches than he had before. Now Job is a household name and everyone knows that he was a spiritual superstar. But we would have never known about Job if he had not gone through such tremendous suffering. Because before all of this happened to Job, no one in the world knew that Job was God’s spiritual superstar. The world may never know who the spiritual superstars are until God reveals it on earth through their suffering, the effects of spiritual superstardom.

After reading this blog answer these questions:

What is the criteria for being a superstar?

What is the difference between a spiritual superstar and a superstar?

Who are the tabloids and the paparazzi for the spiritual superstars?

Is suffering part of being a spiritual superstar ?

S.E.Gregg

http://www.christianolympics.org/