I am always amazed when I watch the Olympics. These athletes are immensely talented and incredibly dedicated. They prepare their whole lives for one short moment of competition that plays itself out in front of millions and millions of people.

What stands out to me about Olympians isn't as much their athletic ability (which is unbelievable), but their motivation. They are disciplined. They are driven.

And that intense motivation is key. What is it that drives people to spend hours and days and months and years of their lives trying to win a medal? Why all the training and all the sweat and all the grueling days? Is it really just to win a little piece of metal and stand on a podium? 

A few years ago I read Donald Miller's book Searching for God Knows What. And although I didn't agree with everying Miller says in the book, I think it's very insightful regarding what motivates us as human beings.

In chapter 8, "Lifeboat Theory," Miller points out that we feel that we have to prove ourselves to others. We have to give the people around us some proof that we belong. This need for acceptance is the reason that people strive to be cool, or popular, or intelligent, or athletic, or good-looking, or wealthy, or whatever. It's why people buy the clothes they wear, it's why they listen to the type of music they listen to, it's why they identify with certain sports teams and certain brands. It's why we're on Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat. We're desperately striving to impress people.

We feel that we have to prove to other people that we belong, and this need for acceptance drives almost everything we do.

Miller starts the chapter this way:

When I was a kid in elementary school my teacher, Mrs. Wunch, asked our class a question that I've come back to about a million times, trying to figure out an answer. The question she asked went along with a lesson about Values Clarification, which is a fancy name for learning how to be a snob. This is how the question went: 

"If there were a lifeboat adrift at sea, and in the lifeboat were a male lawyer, a female doctor, a crippled child, a stay-at-home mom, and a garbageman, and one person had to be thrown overboard to save the others, which person would we choose?" 

I don't remember which person we threw out of the boat. I think it came down to the lawyer, but I can't remember exactly. I do remember, however, that the class did not hesitate in deciding who had value and who didn't. The idea that all people are equal never came up. As I was saying before, we know this sort of thing intrinsically. Or at least we thought we did. 

Miller goes on to point out that because of the Fall, we all feel like this. Society is like a lifeboat without enough room for everyone, and everyone is competing to show why they have worth, why they should be accepted, why they are good enough to stay on the lifeboat.

In other words, because of the Fall, we have all lost the thing that gave us a sense of perfect and total acceptance and love, and now we feel like we have to earn it from the other people around us. So we have to compete with each other.

This sense of competition is all around us. Society is set up to make people feel like they have to prove to everyone else that they belong on the lifeboat. For example, Miller points out that almost every reality show on television is about seeing who gets to stay on the lifeboat and who doesn't.

Think about it. Almost every reality show is a contest about who gets to stay and who gets kicked off. Top Chef. American Idol. The Voice. Last Comic Standing. The Bachelor. The Bachelorette. Survivor. It's all about who's better than who.

In fact, Miller mentions a show called Rank! in which people on the show get judged on some random criteria such as who has the best eyes, who has the best hair, who has the best body, etc. This would sound cruel, but it's so normal. This sort of one-upsmanship starts as early as preschool, when kids argue over who has the better toys, who has the better backpack, who's dad has the better job, etc.

This is how it feels to be human: I have to prove myself to the people around me. I have to show them that there's something good about me--my sense of humor, my sense of fashion, my athletic ability, my intelligence, etc.--some reason that they should accept me. Because if they don't think highly enough of me, I'm devastated.

I have to believe that this is at least part of what drives some Olympians. This is the reason that they have trained and trained and trained for years and years and years. This is why they have traveled across the world. This is the reason that they have prepared their whole lives for a competition that may last only five minutes. This is the reason they face the unbelievable pressure.

Because if they win, if they get to stand on a podium for two and a half minutes while the anthem plays, if they win that little piece of metal, they will prove to everyone else that they belong.

As a Christian, I'm thankful that I don't have to feel that pressure. I know that I am totally, completely, and utterly accepted by the only One who matters. I can have a sense of love and acceptance and worth that makes the opinion of others utterly irrelevant. I can receive the love of Christ, who loved the people who were kicked off the lifeboat--the poor, the lame, the lepers, the Samaritans, the losers. I can know the love of the Christ who looked into the eyes of someone such as John the Apostle, giving him such a sense of worth and acceptance that for the rest of his life, he identified himself as "the disciple who Jesus loved."

Lifeboat living is infinitely tiring and never satisfying. But Christ loves me and accepts me because of His work on the cross. He alone satisfies. For that I'm thankful.