If you think about it you can see that our human species is a very competitive group.  The animal kingdom compete to survive but we compete to compete.  There seems to be this innate drive to, well, is it to do better for ourselves, or to be better then others?  I believe both are at work and that is another competition that concerns me.  I guess it is not a bad thing to try to be 'better', but there seem few ways to do that which don't involve someone else, and 'we' have pretty much decided that to have a winner you need to have a loser, or many losers. This competition has always been here.  Our history, whether secular or religious, include contests pitting brother against brother, family against family, and people against people.  In my present stage of life I still strive for things in a kind of competition, but I am well past the games and contests of my youth.  I wonder if that is because I can't, or because I won't.  Have I grown old, or have I grown wise.  Perhaps the truth lies somewhere in between.  All of this is a result of the BYU volleyball contest I watched last night.  'My' team lost in the 5th set and it invoked feelings which I have been examining.  Early this morning I was taught something that edified me and has been on my mind and expanding.  I start with a phrase that worked itself into my reality that has meaning for me, and hopefully will make, at least, a little sense to you:

MY ULTIMATE CONTEST IS

ME VS. MYSELF

IN THE ARENA OF ETERNITY.

EVERYTHING ELSE IS

JUST SPARRING IN THE

PRACTICE ARENA OF MORTALITY.

 

 Now I realize that 'here' this 'sparring in the practice arena of mortality' is a big part of what we do.  I know that "Sport can teach gospel principles' and I know the great pleasure I get from watching my grandchildren do well in their contests.  I also believe that they have been and are being taught a true and proper perspective of what is written above.  I am glad that this has finally been made clear to me after these many years.  We are told that 'THE' ultimate contest is between good and evil, and that the final result is not in question.  The thing being resolved is where we will stand.  And that contest is, indeed, going on inside us all.  One of the ways that we are being tested in our own personal journey is how and why we 'compete', and how we define those we compete against.  Even how we react to those who try to conduct these competitions.  It is a very vivid and consuming part of the 'furnace of life', and a great place to learn the lessons of 'the' contest which we are all engaged in.  Winning the eternal reward should always be the focus while we are here engaged in this life and 'sparring in the practice arena of mortality'.