Spectator or Participant

Last Wednesday night I watched with interest the performance of my fellow countryman Jim Eastwood in the ‘bear-pit’, which is Lord Sugar’s boardroom on the BBC television programme ‘The Apprentice’. The tide appeared to be going against Jim as his fellow competitors seemed to be prepared to make him the scapegoat for the their collective failure in the task of developing and marketing a mobile telephone application or ‘App’.

He made two excellent contributions as part of his defence, in the first instance he highlighted to everyone that was there that one of the competitors in the boardroom was a mere passenger in the process and then when selected by his team leader to be amongst the final three to be selected for dismissal, he refused to accept the injustice and authoritatively demanded that the team leader change his mind, which to my astonishment he did.

It is to the first contribution that I want to turn our thoughts. In highlighting the fact that one of the competitors was a mere passenger he outlined to Lord Sugar that his competitor was a ‘Spectator’ while he on the other hand was a ‘Participant’. Brilliant! However, this was not to be the last time I heard this analogy being used for the very next night at my Church prayer meeting I was confronted with the very same principle.

The speaker at our prayer meeting brought before us the story of David and Goliath as we find it in 1st Samuel Chapter 17. Of the many different thoughts he brought to us from this incident he asked us to think about how all of the Children of Israel watched each day as Goliath of Gath came down to challenge them to a one on one fight, your champion against me, whoever wins that fight wins the war. Each day he came down saying the same words and each day no-one from the armies of Israel volunteered to take on the giant. That was of course until David arrived on the scene, he was outraged at the giants words and said ‘who is this uncircumcised Philistine, that he should defy the armies of the living God?…Is there not a cause?’ David decided at that moment to do something, he was going to kill Goliath.

As David surveyed the trembling Israelite army all he saw was a bunch of ‘spectators’ but he determined that he was going to be a ‘participant’. The men of Israel were dressed like soldiers, they were on the battlefield but they weren’t taking part in the fight. So often in the Christian life we can be like that.

For the Child of God the place of prayer is the real battlefield in our war with evil. We do not fight with physical weapons, we are in a spiritual battle as Paul said ‘though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh: (For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds;) 2nd Corinthians 10 v 3-4. However, so many of God’s people get all dressed up and come to the battlefield, the place of prayer, but they do not participate. They are mere spectators in this great battle, they listen as others pour out their hearts in prayer but never take part themselves.

Are you a Spectator or a Participant?

‘Fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal life, whereunto thou art also called, and hast professed a good profession before many witnesses.’ 1st Timothy 6 v12