I'm going to guess and say much everyone who reads this will not remember the name Sven Kramer. However, I do bet you remember seeing or hearing about the Vancouver Olympics speed skater would was disqualified for not switching lanes.
Kramer is known to be the best speed skater of this time. He was skating what he said was one of the best 10,000 meters he has ever skate. He was leading the rest of the pack by a ton with less then ten laps to go. Kramer was switching to the outer lane when his coach sticks out a board and yells, "inner lane!" Kramer got back into the inner lane just before the cone. Has he continued to skate he realized the crowd was acting different, like something was wrong.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WIMZ89jo02I
I have been unable to find a good video that shows Sven Kramer's frustration at coach, but you can see a little bit of it in the been link above. You could definitely understand the anger and frustration that Kramer would show to his coach. I mean he had the race won. Gold medal in the bag, but like any good athlete you listen to your coach. That's what Kramer did and it only brought him to be disqualified.
Olympic athletes train four years nonstop for one thing. They have one goal in mind. They work their whole lives for a gold medal. From what I have seen and would assume, they probably didn't go to a normal school; they went to one that would allow them to spend more time in the sport they excel at. And then imagine being misdirected and being disqualified because of a coach guiding you the wrong way.
Sven Kramer said one sentence to reporters, “This really sucks,” he said. “This is a real expensive mistake.”
Although, that must suck for him and for his country, a gold medal will be forgotten. A record setting time, will be broken. The best race you have ever had might just stay just that, your best race. Someday though you will retire from skating move on with your life; you will be forgotten. You will die and someone else great at that sport will take your place.
Kramer has been motivated the same we all have. We are told to strive for first, to be the best. Or so often for most of us, who are not extremely gifted athletes, to strive for money or fame in other things. From the day we start school we are encouraged to work hard, so you can get a good education and go to an excelling college. From there you have your career in mind; work out and make as much money as you can and retire as young as possible.
We, the same as Sven Kramer, are coached to work for things of this lifetime. Things that once we pass away we can no longer have.
As American a good 75% of us believe in a God and a life after this being either Heaven or hell. We believe one day we will stand in front of an all powerful God and be judged.
My question to you: DO WE NOT TAKE THAT JUDGEMENT SERIOUS?
When I think of Sven Kramer's anger and lose of respect he now has for his coach, I also think of the day we will stand Judgement and how we will feel much of the same feelings Kramer felt. Then, I think how much worse we will have it then. We will think of all those people we now want to blame for being "led the wrong way"
(“Usually, I don’t want to blame anyone else, but this time I can’t do anything else,” Kramer said. “I wanted to go to the outer lane; then just before the cone, Gerald shouted, ‘Inner lane.’ I thought he’s probably right, and I went to the inner lane.)
Romans 1:20 (New International Version)
20For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.
For us, our all powerful God says we have no excuse.
Romans 1:21 (New International Version)
21For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened.
We will have no one to point to blame on our Judgement day. We will someday die and stand in front and have to give an account of our life. Do we take that seriously?
