How to Live for an Audience of One
By Jordan Scott, Resonate Missoula
“Play for an audience of One,” my mother proclaimed before every one of my highschool basketball games. My mother is a classic example of a Jesus fanatic. She loves Jesus more than anything else and she’ll tell you about it. “Play for an audience of One,” means to play for Jesus’s delight, not human praise. Another God platitude on the long list of repetitious God dictums my mother so often recited. And like all the rest of the Jesusy things my mom said to me during my early teen years, “playing for an audience of One” seemed irrelevant and impractical. “Yes Mom, I understand that God loves me if I fail at basketball,” I would say, “but Jesus is not offering division one basketball scholarships,” I would think. The problem with “play for an audience of One,” is that while the ethereal God, who centered and controlled my mother’s world, might love me no matter my performance; college coaches, who controlled the basketball scholarships, only cared that I performed well. College coaches were my primary audience because impressing them was the key to my dream; a division one collegiate basketball career. God’s unchanging love was great and all, but at best, it was peripheral encouragement for my life’s true destination. Every game night, though, I would extract a little confidence from my mother's words. The idea of playing for a god helped me forget the pressure of playing in front of college coaches. It took the edge off my nerves, dulling my fear of failure, allowing my assertive, confident play style to emerge. My mother's words helped, but looking back now, I realize how severely I missed their potency.
Way before I was born, like 1,980 years before I was born, a guy named Saul entered the scene. Saul was a big deal. He was born into a highly honorable lineage, incredibly moral, well studied in the law and religion, and zealously pursued personal and societal righteousness. Part of his pursuit of societal righteousness was the persecution of Christians. In his culture during that time, his resume was coveted. However, his life changed completely when he encountered Jesus. Jesus radically transformed Saul's life, even renaming him Paul. Paul went on to become the most prolific Christian evangelist of all time, writing most of the new testament. Late in his life, he reflects on his cultural successes and says, “But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ.”(Philippians 3:7-8). Yes, Saul’s resume provided him a high social standing. The problem with Saul's accomplishments, which Paul explains, is that they were works of the flesh. Flesh, how Paul means it, is human achievement that takes no account of God. His flesh (personal achievements) did nothing for him in relationship with God. In fact, his confidence in the flesh was an obstacle between him and his knowledge of Christ. So he counted his works apart from God as trash so that he may know Christ and be found in the power of His death and resurrection. To Paul, no accomplishment, status or achievement was comparable to life lived completely in the knowledge of Jesus.
After high school, I earned a basketball scholarship to the University of Idaho. Two years into my collegiate career I encountered Jesus Christ and committed my life to follow Him. The spiritual, moral frameworks of my life, as well as my motivations slowly transformed. Jesus shifted from the periphery of my life to center stage. As He edged out my theology of basketball above all else, I learned a couple of things. Things my younger self would benefit tremendously from. If I had a chance, I would tell him:
1. Jesus really is the sweetest gain. No success or basketball high (or any other high) can ever be as beautiful, fulfilling or as needed as the knowledge of who Christ is through a deep relationship with Him. Seek Him!
2. Like Paul, do not measure personal success by the world’s metrics. Instead, derive meaning from intimacy with Jesus.
3. In Jesus, you already won the most important game. Approach basketball (or school, relationships, career, ministry, ect.) as a gift with confidence and joy, not as a test of your personal worth.
Two years ago I hung up my sneakers to pursue a life in vocational ministry. Soon my basketball career with its stats, accomplishments, and victories will be forgotten. My new life with Jesus; however, will last an eternity. Turns out Mother was right all those years ago. Life, and Basketball as an extension, is best when ‘played for an audience of One.’
