competitions ugly side

Thinking of the recent college basketball coach that was fired, the scandal with Neil Armstrong, and the soccer referee that was killed in Utah - competition can be an ugly and even lethal thing.

I like a little competition...but only if I'm winning. Shocking said no one ever. Winning sort of is the point of competing. Makes me wonder if a lot of our problems don't come from the ingrained desire not just to compete but to conquer.

Competition is all about comparison - comparison of skills, abilities, looks. Competition is more often than not a soul sucking adventure but maybe it doesn't have to be that way. In my class there are people who are simply better at things than I am and instead of my trying to compete with them, it would be better if I rejoiced at what they excel at and seek to learn from their expertise. Competition has an ugly side, let's rise above it with some help from The One who never felt any need to compete with anybody.

Galatians 5:16-23 (The Message)
^16-18My counsel is this: Live freely, animated and motivated by God's Spirit. Then you won't feed the compulsions of selfishness. For there is a root of sinful self-interest in us that is at odds with a free spirit, just as the free spirit is incompatible with selfishness. These two ways of life are antithetical, so that you cannot live at times one way and at times another way according to how you feel on any given day. Why don't you choose to be led by the Spirit and so escape the erratic compulsions of a law-dominated existence?
^19-21It is obvious what kind of life develops out of trying to get your own way all the time: repetitive, loveless, cheap sex; a stinking accumulation of mental and emotional garbage; frenzied and joyless grabs for happiness; trinket gods; magic-show religion; paranoid loneliness; cutthroat competition; all-consuming-yet-never-satisfied wants; a brutal temper; an impotence to love or be loved; divided homes and divided lives; small-minded and lopsided pursuits; the vicious habit of depersonalizing everyone into a rival; uncontrolled and uncontrollable addictions; ugly parodies of community. I could go on. This isn't the first time I have warned you, you know. If you use your freedom this way, you will not inherit God's kingdom. ^22-23But what happens when we live God's way? He brings gifts into our lives, much the same way that fruit appears in an orchard—things like affection for others, exuberance about life, serenity. We develop a willingness to stick with things, a sense of compassion in the heart, and a conviction that a basic holiness permeates things and people. We find ourselves involved in loyal commitments, not needing to force our way in life, able to marshal and direct our energies wisely.