Elizabeth Swaney is a very average skier from Oakland, California. She’s certainly not a bad skier, but there is nothing about her skills that stand out. Yet, last week she caught the world’s attention by competing at the Women’s Half-Pipe event in the Olympics at Pyeongchang. She was stacked against twenty-three of the world’s best athletes in the sport, and her qualifying run was scored dead last, trailing far behind the next lowest score. As the world scratched their heads and wondered how she even got there, she was celebrating the achievement of a dream.
So how did she do it? She studied the rules of qualifying to participate in the Olympics, and she took the long path to get there. Rather than dazzling the world with amazing skills, she showed up for world cup events that weren’t well attended. Lots of them. Over the last two years, she has racked up enough points to qualify for the Olympic competition.
Often, achieving great things doesn’t require exceptional abilities or privilege, it just requires that you show up consistently. God doesn’t expect you to achieve incredible things, but he does expect you to show up. “For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome” (1 John 5:3). Are you working toward your goals, or are you just waiting for greatness to strike?