Worship Opportunities

If you know me, you know that my first athletic love is swimming. I can’t remember a time where I didn’t know how to swim. My younger years had me competing, but now I swim mostly for the pure love of practice. 

As with any sport, there is always room for improvement, and there’s always been an extra measure of opportunity to improve my butterfly! Ha! Despite my brief 25 fly YMCA record-holding title back when I was 8 (maybe held for like a weekend…), I have never been described as “good” at butterfly. 

After a brief period of rejecting the stroke altogether in my adult years, in 2017, my Master’s Swim group forced me back into it. I’ve been consistently practicing this dreaded stroke ever since. 

In the last year, I began devoting a large percentage of my workouts to individual medley repeats. While that practice helped my butterfly, I recently had the greatest results due to one small piece of advice offered through a Facebook reel I was enticed to click on. Two tiny words with one concept: THINK FORWARD. 

(I’m feeling the rolling eyes of my swim coaches expressing “I told you so…” )

I didn’t think these two words would make that much of a difference, so I was shocked when I consistently shaved at least 3 seconds off of my 100 IM repeats, and roughly 5-7 seconds for my 200 IM’s. That simple mindset shift caused me to propel towards the wall and not just survive each stroke. 

This mentality of “thinking forward” went beyond the pool, though, and a few Scriptures popped into my mind. They involve a similar mentality and offer rewards that are far more significant than a time drop in solitary swim practice.

So if you have been raised with Christ, seek the things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things.

 Colossians 3:1-2 

Therefore, with your minds ready for action, be sober-minded and set your hope completely on the grace to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

1 Peter 1:13

Am I thinking forward towards heaven or is my thought life earth-bound? 

Don’t store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves don’t break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

Matthew 6:19-21 

Am I thinking forward in the investments I make? Do they offer only a temporary reward or will they reap an eternal reward? 

How much would my life (which is made to worship God) be shaped and changed if I took this concept of THINKING FORWARD out of the pool and into my thought life (also intended to worship God)? 

God is so gracious to faithfully transform every part of us, little by little, into the image of Christ, directing us to THINK FORWARD.