Jimmy Christ wrote:
In his words, “I could feel the Lord’s presence & He answered my prayers.”
I don't know him from Adam, but it always bugs me when an athlete chalks up a good performance to divine intervention.
Lol, usually when Christians say things like this they aren’t actually calling it “divine intervention” in the way you think.
Christians believe Jesus is “Immanuel” meaning “God with us” and that Jesus died as a sacrifice for humans not obeying God (sin) so that now humans who believe in and submit to Jesus can have an eternal relationship with God. Now that Jesus is no longer living on Earth, the Bible says that God’s spirit lives in those people who believe in Jesus. So basically God’s spirit is in us so that we can have a relationship with Him while here on Earth before heaven.
Basically Christians believe that God’s presence is always with them... However, we don’t always FEEL that presence. Kind of like how you can Know that you are fit, but you don’t always feel it. And when you have those fit-feeling good runs- man does it feel good. So when Christians say they felt God’s presence, they mean just that. They always KNOW God is with them. But when they really FEEL Him with them-there’s simply no better feeling.
Usually they aren’t saying that God was picking them up and making them run faster, jump higher, or hit the ball farther. It’s just the feeling of knowing that your creator is actually with you and loves you.
Can that improve your performance? Probabaly... we usually like when our loved ones are at races and their suppprt may help us run our best, so it’s the same with God-only FAR greater.
Also, many times (not all the times) the Christian prayer is “to feel God’s presence”. So Totten’s prayer was likely answered because he felt God’s prescence. His prayer most likely wasn’t “God, make me run 2:14... I haven’t put in the proper training, but you can make it happen, so supernaturally do it”.
Similary, when athletes say “All glory/credit to God” they don’t mean God made the performance happen. They’re just acknowledging that their relationship with God helped them stay consistent in the training or gave them the peace to make it through a difficult situation and push on, etc... Also, The Bible says that “no matter what you do, do it all for the glory of God”. And in context, it means to basically work hard at whatever your doing- work as if the person you’re working for is God. If you’re going to train, train with everything you have because using your gifts to their full ability pleases God. Many Christian athletes find the motivation of competing for “the glory of God” more satisfying and feel it helps them get the most out of their potential (But more importantly they get to work/train with the presence of God which to them is better than any achievement or performance.)