Broken Trophies

Steve Boots
13 minutes ago
2 min read

And every man that striveth for the mastery is temperate in all things. Now they do it to obtain a corruptible crown; but we an incorruptible. 1 Corinthians 9:25

My son put a lot of work and time into a woodworking project for a regional fine arts competition at school. He ended up winning the regional competition, so he was allowed to enter the same piece into the state competition. Because it was a static piece that was going to be judged by the end of the day, we dropped it off and went home. He was understandably excited when he found out later that night that his project had won state and that he would be presented his trophy the next day at school. When he got back into the car after school that day, he had a look on his face that was not indicative of a young man who had just won a trophy for first place at the state competition. When I asked him what was wrong, I found out that within minutes of being presented the trophy, his sister had accidentally dropped it, and it broke. He was now carrying his hard-earned prize in a couple worthless pieces.

Seeing his trophy reminded me of the box of trophies and medals and ribbons I had in the garage that I hadn’t looked at in years. They were awards for wrestling, Bible memorization, spelling bees, and probably a few other things. What used to be so valuable to me and what used to line the shelves in my bedroom as a boy were now barely a memory. My son holding that broken trophy was a great lesson for him to learn. One day, everything we have spent our lives trying to accomplish will all be burned up and will count for nothing. All our trophies and worldly accomplishments will lie in broken piles at our feet. The only thing that will last is what we do for Christ.

In 1 Corinthians 9 we read that the awards we earn here in this life are corruptible. They will pass away, and many of them before we get to the end of this life. I’m not even sure if I still have my box of trophies, but even if I do, they really don’t mean anything to me now. As we get older, our trophies get bigger – nice house, fancy car, job promotions, presentations for accomplishments – but they will all end up in the same place when life is over – in broken piles at our feet. It is important to spend our effort and time living for Christ and with an eye toward eternity. Those rewards will never fade away.