What does it take to be the greatest?
What does it take to be the greatest?
3 October 2022
The Greatest Of All Time? Tennis star Serena Williams and one of her many trophies.
As I read my copy of TIME magazine, I was interested to see that in reporting on the retirement of the tennis star Serena Williams, the writer considered her “the greatest female athlete of all time ... perhaps the greatest athlete of all time”.
Perhaps Williams deserves that accolade, having won more major championships (23 titles) than any male or female tennis player since 1968, when Grand Slam tournaments allowed professionals. But she’s also acknowledged for changing her sport more than any other female and against all odds. And along the way inspired a generation of young people, male and female, to believe in themselves, overcome obstacles and achieve their best.
It’s one thing to be considered the best in your field at a point in time, but another for someone to style you as The GOAT. Yet none of us knows who will come after us, with even more skill or ability than we have, whatever field we are in.
Interestingly, the one person who could have claimed not just to be the greatest of his time but the Greatest Of All Time, was too humble to look for that sort of recognition. Yes, Jesus said that he was God’s son, which is an amazing statement to make, but he backed it up by the miracles he performed and by coming back from his death on a Roman cross. A death that was in our stead, to pay for our sins.
As the Bible says, Jesus, “Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage, rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness” (Philippians 2:6-7 NIV).
We may never be a GOAT, but by accepting Jesus as God’s son and trying to live by the example he set us, we can be the greatest version of ourselves. And possibly even inspire others along the way.
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