A real pro

I was easily daunted by the skilful air of the lunchtime pool sharks. Our lunch break area included a massive table. Older men who had clearly played snooker for many years sauntered around the table, the same time every day and evidently had priority rights over the table. You better not be playing on their table when their break time occurred. It was a given that they had acquired some exclusive privilege to playing at that time, on that table, with those coloured balls.

I was a mere 15 year old who had just learned a little of the game at a recent youth group night, working away some holiday hours at a major department retail store, a mere youth amongst these Goliaths of the table.

And yet, one lunchtime, one of our sharks was without his partner. The other two were looking for their usual game and suddenly I was thrust into the middle of a game with real “pros.”  “Can you play” they asked? “Yessss…” came the timid response.

What happened next defies belief. The games were quick. These men potted the balls into their respective pockets with ease. We had neared the end of the game when it became my turn again. I was facing the last red ball. I’m sure my partner by this stage had his proverbial head in his hands. My usual playing style early in a game was to bash and hope the ball I hit goes down some pocket after a long run around the table.  The red obeyed my bash but then yellow followed red, then green, then brown, I was incredulous. Some jaws were opening. I began to aim balls very carefully now. Blue went next and pink. Somehow I managed each time to pot the required ball in a suitable pocket. My heart was in my hands. Here we go – and black! We had it. I had just cleared the table in one fell swoop. I was incredulous. I had fluked it and I just about fell out of my skin. It’s been said we all have our 15 minutes of fame. If that be true, I surely used mine up that day. This young David had just licked some formidable Goliaths, all of who had honed their skills over many lunchhours.

It was some time later that I was poring over Ecclesiastes chapter 9. My mind was taken back to the game by a 15 year old boy who until recently had not even known how to hold a cue. In Solomon’s words:

I returned and saw under the sun that – the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, nor bread to the wise, nor riches to men of understanding, nor favour to men of skill; but time and chance happen to them all
Ecclesiastes 9:11

A new song

What an encouragement to us as we grapple with the rigour of life. The fastest man doesn’t always run the race. The strongest man doesn’t always win the battle. It’s not to those with all the power and resources, and every conceivable advantage. There are five “nots” in Ecclesiasties 9:11 because the point being made is success is not what we have so often pictured it to be.

The book of Judges underlines this truth. Those whom God chose to anoint in a special way to deliver His people by and large did not have life on their side. Consider the day in which they lived and the cultural mores, and read on. The list includes someone born out of marriage, someone who was lefthanded, a woman, someone who had no natural courage, someone else who was born to a couple of old people, long past their prime. Not a good look!

God has so ordered it that the swift and the strong don’t have exclusive rights, and I am glad. There is space for me yet to give God glory. The Apostle Paul sang from the same songsheet.

…not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble are called. But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty; and the base things of the world and the things which are despised God has chosen, and the things which are not, to bring to nothing the things that are, that no flesh should glory in His presence”
1 Corinthians 1:26-29

The Nobel Peace Prize bypassed dozens of bright and brilliant people, and stepped into the poverty-stricken, disease-infested streets of Calcutta. We all know that Mother Teresa didn’t represent the swift, the wealthy, the influential. The climax of the Ecclesiasties treatise is in chapter 12 where we are encouraged to fear God and obey His commands, as this is the whole duty of man. We would do well to remember that, even on a day we have our 15 minutes of fame, perhaps especially then.