“The horse is prepared for battle, but victory comes from the Lord.” It seems like the Lord was on the side of the Browns last week as they defeated my Steelers in a snowy slugfest in Cleveland. That Bible verse comes courtesy of Jameis Winston, the Browns’ backup quarterback who shared it with a reporter before the game started. It’s a quote from Proverbs, the Bible’s book of pithy one-liners. The phrasing is somewhat awkward: it sounds like the horse itself has put on armor, sharpened its sword, and girded its loins for battle. It gave the internet a chuckle, but the idea behind the quote is sound: as much as we might prepare for the challenges in front of us, the outcome depends on forces beyond our control.
During the Olympics last summer, Brad East explained in Christianity Today why athletes seem to be so vocal about their faith. We talked about his post before, but it’s worth revisiting now. Some think that an athlete touting their faith is an act of virtue signaling, or a culture war fight with the media. Others wonder if there is a shadowy cabal of religious leaders behind the athlete force-feeding them grand statements to platform their religion. There’s a simpler answer beyond this hermeneutic of suspicion: East outlines that athletes offer gratitude because they know firsthand how much their performance is out of their control. He writes:
Athletic discipline is rigorously controlled because, when the whistle blows, nothing is under control. It’s chaos, contingency, and chance all the way down. The skies fill with rain clouds; the court is slick with sweat; the track is spongy; your opponents are strategically unpredictable … What do the victors themselves seem to feel? A few of them strut and jaw, but many will drop to their knees and weep like children. Ask them their emotion and they’ll tell you: gratitude.
This concept of athletic gratitude is lost on many secular viewers. “You trained your whole life for this event, pushing yourself to the highest heights of athletic achievement, and now that you’ve won the gold medal and glory, you’re giving thanks to an invisible sky father who was absent that entire time?” But these athletes understand the power of circumstance: so much of their success depended on finding the right coach, finding the right sponsorships, finding the right training facilities or training partner, finding the right teammates, or even something as simple as not hitting an invisible deformity of the track.
Genuine gratitude isn’t the kind of emotion that can be faked or mustered up by willpower. Perhaps we might choose to focus on the positives of a situation or reframe how we think about difficulties, but the feeling of gratitude always arises in response to some external benefit. We are thankful for something, most especially when that something is not entirely our own doing. “What athletes intuit,” writes East, “is that, somehow, this accomplishment is well and truly theirs and a gift” (emphasis mine).
Wouldn’t we rather our athletes have this attitude of humility and gratitude as opposed to the strutting and jawing that East alludes to? When the 2020 documentary The Last Dance was released on Netflix, sports fans got to watch basketball legend Michael Jordan reflect on the dominance of his 1990s Chicago Bulls. Jordan is one of the greatest athletes of all time, beyond a doubt, but viewers also discovered him to be a remarkably petty person. Decades later, he still felt defensive and jealous that other players would win MVP awards he thought he deserved. He remains heated over interpersonal conflicts with teams and coaches. Throughout the docuseries, he repeats the phrase “… and I took that personally,” which has become a meme that has tarnished his reputation. One wonders what the basketball legend gives thanks for as he passes the gravy boat across the kitchen table each Thanksgiving. Can he give thanks to anyone or for anything if he did it all himself? Were there any circumstances beyond his control?
This Thanksgiving, then, we are right to pause and acknowledge the many ways our lives have been touched by serendipity. Like an athlete, we can be grateful that some cosmic alignment of unseen forces came together so that we might have gainful employment, a happy marriage, a loving relationship with our parents, good health, money to pay the bills, or a rich community of friendships. We know that none of these blessings are owed to us, and we know that many of them come apart from our earnings or achievements.
So, as you let the turkey and carbs from your feast lull you to sleep on the couch this year, pay attention to the football game that someone has inevitably put on the TV. Listen to the players thank their teams, their families, their coaches, or their God. Pay attention to their praise. You might learn something about your life and be inspired to give thanks to the heavens yourself.
