Find Your Greatness

I've been trained to expect ads from companies like Nike to feature toned athletic bodies, sweating and achieving athletic greatness of one sort or another.  The message is "buy our stuff if you want to become great like these beautiful, successful people."  So I was very pleasantly surprised by this Nike ad, which I've now seen a couple of times during the Olympics:



This 12-year-old boy from London, Ohio is neither toned nor displaying athletic greatness.  But the narrator tells us that greatness is not reserved for the chosen few with special gifts.  Greatness isn't rare or precious, or unique. His final words as we watch this boy doggedly jogging on are these: "We're all capable of it. All of us."

And the ordinariness of this boy - in such stark contrast to the feats of the Olympic athletes - reminded me that we really are not just capable of greatness, but we are from the moment of birth already great.

Our greatness begins in our identities as creatures made by God, and made in God's own image:

So God created human beings in his own image.
In the image of God he created them;
male and female he created them. 
(Genesis 1:27)

And God assured us that he sees something compelling in us, his creatures, when he sent Jesus for our sake, to redeem us from our sins:

For God loved the world so much that he gave his one and only Son,
so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.
(John 3:16)

And God used the words of his servant, the apostle Paul, to remind us that as his beloved creatures, redeemed by Jesus' blood, we have a purpose and task to live into:

So I run with purpose in every step. I am not just shadowboxing.
(I Corinthians 9:26)

Yes, the only question of our greatness lies in whether we live into it fully, or merely leave it as an unfulfilled  potential for so very much more.  How will you live into your greatness today?