I rowed in an eight-man shell in college. I grew up on the East Coast of the United States near a Chesapeake Bay estuary and was often on or near the water, so rowing was the perfect sport for me. 

At the end of my second season, we entered the largest crew competition in the US. After preliminary races, the boats were placed in very competitive heats that might be won by merely a few feet or even inches. 

It was the most exhausting race of my young career. I pushed myself harder than ever—so hard that for the last twenty or thirty seconds my vision went black. A quiet spiritual assurance that this would pass kept me rowing across the finish line. Within a minute or so, my vision did return. Still, this had never happened before; it was painful and frightening. 

I saw that I had regarded my strength as belonging to my body. But in fact, power belongs to God.

I made a silent pact with myself that I would never push myself that hard again. In fact, I thought it would be best to leave the team after this regatta. It was the last regatta of the season anyway, but there was one more race that afternoon, so we rowers returned to the hotel to rest.

I was sick at heart. I didn’t feel like resting. After years of unsuccessful attempts at sports, I was sure I had found my athletic home on the crew; but now I was ready to abandon it. I needed comfort and guidance. Pacing around my small hotel room, I asked God what I should do.

Almost two thousand years ago, Paul admonished: “Know ye not that they which run in a race run all, but one receiveth the prize? So run, that ye may obtain” (I Corinthians 9:24). Of course, Paul was referring to spiritual attainment, to the understanding that we “live, and move, and have our being” in God (Acts 17:28), and likening this spiritualization of thought and action to an athlete’s discipline.

Mary Baker Eddy, who discovered Christian Science, notes (using Mind as a synonym for God): “. . . Mind alone enlarges and empowers man through its mandate,—by reason of its demand for and supply of power. . . .

“The devotion of thought to an honest achievement makes the achievement possible” (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 199). 

I had not brought my Bible on this trip, but I found a Gideon Bible in the nightstand drawer. (For more than a century, The Gideon International has generously placed Bibles in thousands of hotel rooms and other locations around the world.) Still asking God for an answer, I opened the Bible and landed on this passage: “[God] delighteth not in the strength of the horse: he taketh not pleasure in the legs of a man. The Lord taketh pleasure in them that fear him, in those that hope in his mercy” (Psalms 147:10, 11).

This answer was spot-on! The rower’s power comes principally from the legs, and I saw that I had regarded my strength as belonging to my body—my legs. But in fact, power belongs to God. He is omnipotent—all power. Power does not leave infinite Spirit, God, to reside in a physical body. All power remains in God; man is simply God’s reflection (see Genesis 1:26). In looking for strength “in the legs of a man,” I was breaking God’s First Commandment, “Thou shalt have no other gods before me” (Exodus 20:3)—no belief in another power before God’s power, no other power but God’s power.

My job, or goal, was to consistently reflect God in every aspect of the sport.

Christ Jesus, the man who fulfilled all the Messianic prophecy that had preceded him, knew and taught this. He healed disease, walked on the water, nullified the intentions of his would-be killers, and was resurrected from the tomb, yet he humbly declared, “The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do: for what things soever he doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise” (John 5:19).

I could feel my thought shifting, looking to omnipotent Spirit as the single source of strength. My humble hope and prayer had to be in Spirit—to revere or honor God, not a physical body. Addressing “Our Father which art in heaven,” the Lord’s Prayer concludes, “Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever” (Matthew 6:9, 13).

This led to a deep humility about what I hoped to achieve as a rower. The power (and the glory!) must always be recognized as belonging to God, omnipotent Spirit. My job, or goal, was to consistently reflect God in every aspect of the sport: practice, preparation, competition, and rejoicing. 

This quieted my fear of exhaustion. When it was time for the afternoon race, I looked forward to it as a test in which to prove this spiritual lesson that I was learning. It was a fine and comfortable race. And, no, I didn’t quit the crew! My senior year, the team elected me captain of the varsity boat. Never again did I experience such pain and exhaustion, even as my rowing increasingly became less selfish as well as smoother, stronger, and more joyous.

In the years following, I’ve met many other kinds of challenges, too, in sales, corporate, and scholastic positions. The lessons regarding humility and spiritual power continue, and so does my gratitude.