DIKKON EBERHART
  • Home
  • About Me
  • My Books
  • Listen
  • The Longer View
    • GOD
    • WRITING
    • LIFE
  • Subscription
  • Calendar
  • Crosswalk & Bible Study Tools Articles

Prophets and Apostles

6/16/2017

10 Comments

 
Picture

​Dikkon Eberhart


This piece is really just for fun, so don’t expect any lofty theological or biblical insight.

It’s also about parental pride.

It’s about our son Sam and about how proud Channa and I are of his effort last weekend. She and I were talking about his effort afterwards, and she made a point that got me thinking both about Sam and also—oddly enough—about the apostles and about the prophets.

I’ll tell you Channa’s point in a minute, but, first, here’s why I was thinking about prophets and apostles.

The apostles were a team, and they played a team game.

Their Coach brought them together, showed them The Way, kept their spirits up when they were doubtful or downhearted, chided them when He was tired of their unremembering what He had told them before, applauded them when they got it right, and kept letting them know that a time would come, soon, when He would not be beside them and they would need to play the game by themselves.
Which, of course, later, they did.

On the other hand, the prophet (any prophet) was a loner.

He was out there on his own. No one helped him; he wasn’t honored in his own country—to be biblical about it.

Nor did he know whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune or to take arms against a sea of troubles and by opposing end them—to be Shakespearian.

What was he to do?

All he could do was to tell the truth—devil take the hindmost.

Each of them told the truth, the apostles and the prophet. Each competed against the enemy. Each sought to win in battle. And—what we are assured—each does win.

All things work together for good—this is what we are assured. “All things work together for good, to them that love God, to them who are called according to his purpose.” This assurance appears in no less a place than in Romans 8:28.
So…two different types of soldiers are breasting their way into battle.

There are soldiers who work as a team, and there are soldiers who do battle alone. It’s possible that those whom we have come to call apostles and those whom we have come to call prophets would not have chosen that particular role, if they had been given a choice. Yet each one faithfully did that which was thrust upon him to do.

So that’s how far my thought went about the Apostles and the Prophets before my thought turned back to Sam.


Sam is not a soldier, but he is a dedicated Special Olympian. Over the years, he has competed in basketball, softball, track-and-field (long jump and 100-meter dash), alpine skiing (modified giant slalom), bowling, 50-yard snowshoe racing, bocce, and swimming (freestyle and back stroke).

Here’s Channa’s idea. Some of these are team sports—basketball, softball, bocce. The first two of these are won by making instant tactical decisions based on the ever-changing circumstances on the court or in the field. Bocce does not require instant decisions, but tactics and team play are needed to prevail.
The other sports are based on individual effort (unless it’s a relay).

Sam likes team sports because he likes to be part of the team, but instant decision-making about where it is tactically best to throw the ball right then is not one of his skills.

On the other hand, he knows how to go fast. Get in the water—and GO!
The majority of Sam’s gold medals have been earned in swimming or in alpine skiing.

The important event last weekend for our family was the Virginia Special Olympics Swimming Tournament, held at an enclosed aquatic center near Richmond. Seven swimmers from the Roanoke club were chosen to compete, Sam being one. Channa and I attended also, so we could watch the competition and have a weekend away.

Sam was selected to swim in three races, 50-meter and 100-meter freestyle and also 50-meter backstroke. All three occurred on Saturday, with about an hour-and-a-half between the two freestyle races but only about fifteen minutes between the longer freestyle race and the backstroke race.

Competing that weekend were hundreds of swimmers, in hundreds of heats, and assisting them were many coaches, volunteers, service providers, and parents. The aquatic center ran the event smoothly. It takes a day-and-a-half to run all the heats. It’s a noisy, echoing, crowded, humid, hot and wonderful time of upholding the spirit of Special Olympics.

Sam’s first race was the 50 free—eight swimmers, paired up as best as possible on the basis of their results last year and on any time trials available. Sam took a silver. The winner was in a class by himself, so Sam was the best of the other seven swimmers by about a length. Good fellow!

After a rest, Sam’s next race was the 100 free. Again, a field of eight. Again, one very competent swimmer dominated throughout.

So the placements I was interested in were second, third, and fourth. These three were evenly matched swimmers. Sam was an easy second until the first turn, when he lost a length just turning. By his second turn he had faded to a likely fourth. He was fourth during the third leg. Starting the fourth leg, second and third were neck-and-neck, and Sam was a length-and-half behind. He was flailing a bit.

Then two things happened. One of the neck-and-neck swimmers just seemed to give out. He dropped rapidly from contention, so Sam had third wrapped up. Then—with about fifteen yards to go—Sam earned his second silver medal of the day.

He was a length-and-a-half behind. He put his head down and churned and churned, gaining with every stroke. A half-length behind. Even. A foot ahead, two feet, a half-length. Go, Sam, go!
Sam won his second silver medal, with a flat out effort, by a length and a half.

Proud parents! Last year, Sam took a gold in the 100 free. I was ecstatic. But his competition was less last year than this year. This year was a different event all together. We saw Sam determine himself to win his battle…and win it he did.

The biblical prophets did the same. Sam is not a prophet—except about what he suspects his mother might say he may have for lunch.

Why the Special Olympian and the prophet came together in my head, triggered by Channa’s idea about the difference between the genius of the team player and the genius of the solo-sport player, is that I saw Sam make his determined effort to tell the truth about what he knew was to be the way of the world during the fourth leg of his 100 free.

Some prophets deal with the entire functioning of God’s sovereignty and of the universe He created. Sam’s scope is smaller. But what Sam made happen was truth.

And he held onto a glimmer of that truth when, about fifteen minutes later, he swam a 50 back. “Oh, he’s so tired,” Channa commiserated, watching. All I could think was, “Hold that place, hold that place, hold that place.”
He did, and he took the bronze.
10 Comments
Peter Cutler link
6/16/2017 11:35:40 am

Congratulations to Sam .... and his parents. I was a soldier for many years and also an athlete (I'm still participating in martial arts although not in competition).

I never knew any soldiers who performed well strictly as individuals. Military operations require rigorous and thorough training in a team oriented environment and operational success depends also on support units that provide supplies, intelligence and transportation. No individual can function efficiently without these components.

Athletic endeavors, even in individual sports, gain success with the assistance of coaches, supportive organizations, sometimes financial endorsement and most of all, parents or other caring people.

No matter how proficient and how determined we are, only when we are not alone are we able to attain our most important goals.

Reply
Dikkon
6/16/2017 05:07:48 pm

Thanks, Pete, for your reminder of how military operations actually work--and of how solo athletic ones work as well. The piece was mostly for fun and for parental pride, but I'm grateful for your carefulness to set the record straight.

And I haven't said the following to you personally in a while. Thank you for your service, Peter, my friend.

Reply
floyd link
6/16/2017 01:24:28 pm

What a wonderful feel good story!

Congratulations to Sam for his dedication and effort! The character traits that it takes to do what Sam did are the ones that I respect the most.

Congratulations to you and your wife. Well done, my friend.

Reply
Dikkon
6/16/2017 05:13:14 pm

Floyd, you're welcome! If you ask Sam about this moment, now, several days later, he shrugs it off and says, "What's for dinner." But I know that he's proud his team of seven swimmers came away from the tournament with a total of 17 medals (no ribbons counted--medals). That goes back not only to the athletes themselves but especially to excellent coaching. It was a good weekend!

Reply
Vicki Reynolds Schad
6/16/2017 02:12:47 pm

I've never been a soldier or an athlete, but I had a "special" older brother, as you know. Any victory, any win, in their lives is monumental--both for them and for their families. Just this afternoon I read (from Philippians 3), "I press on toward the goal to win the [supreme and heavenly] prize to which God in Christ Jesus is calling us upward." Congratulations to your Sam, and to you and Channa. The gold awaits.

Reply
Dikkon
6/16/2017 05:31:12 pm

Hi Vicki!

Yes, of course I know about your brother, for whom you were his voice. I think of Bobby vividly, and often. Most recently, I've been thinking of him because of Elizabeth Cox's new novel, A Question of Mercy, which I am about done with and don't want to come to an end. If you don't know book, I advise you to look it up. Truly wonderful characters, great story telling. Delightful. As life actually is. The Adam character in the novel (which is located in the south in 1953) brings me close to what you have made for me of Bobby, connecting through events of Bobby's that transpired at the Pownal State School. I recommend the novel to anyone at all, but I think you particularly would love it and would be captivated by Adam's sister Jess, just as I have been.

Reply
Elizabeth Moffat
6/16/2017 06:51:22 pm

What a wonderful come from behind story of spirit at work. Please congratulate Sam for us. As a mother of a once teenage national swimmer, you brought back the special feeling and excitement of being a proud parent in the bleachers on deck. So glad you were able to be there.

Reply
Dikkon
6/16/2017 08:51:13 pm

Thanks, Lil. I'll pass your congratulations along. Do you find yourself missing the desert? Now and then it creeps into my head, and I see the long view. I was glad to have been there, especially with you, and especially because of the treasure for me of our long conversation.

Reply
Dawn
7/8/2017 04:09:57 pm

Sam is such a joy watch swimming! He works hard and never gives up, always giving 100%. So proud to work with a truly great athlete. Sam brings joy to all his teammates and coaches!

Reply
Dikkon
7/8/2017 05:16:54 pm

Aw, Dawn, you are so kind to say this. What Channa and I have been saying to one another repeatedly is what fortune it is for Sam to have such fine and dedicated coaches as are you and your team. He really loves working with you and the other coaches -- and he adores being there with his teammates...most particularly for the dances!

Reply



Leave a Reply.

    Archives

    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    October 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    January 2017
    February 2015
    February 2014
    January 2014

    RSS Feed

Copyright © 2021 Dikkon Eberhart
Website Design by Michelle Gill

Headshots by Alexander Rose Photography, LLC
  • Home
  • About Me
  • My Books
  • Listen
  • The Longer View
    • GOD
    • WRITING
    • LIFE
  • Subscription
  • Calendar
  • Crosswalk & Bible Study Tools Articles