Over 100,000 thousand people applied to become one of the contestants on Survivor Panama: Exile Island which began in February, 2005. 16 people made the journey and only one left with the million dollar prize. I wonder how many of those would have turned up if the prize had been to simply win. No big pay check at the end, just the satisfaction of knowing you did your best and won.

Paul said in 1 Corinthians 9:23-25, “I do all this for the sake of the gospel, that I may share in its blessings. Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize. Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last; but we do it to get a crown that will last forever.”

In a reality TV game show no matter who wins the top prize, or benefits from the runner up monies, one day it will all be gone. CBS offers $1 million to the winner of each series of Survivor. $1 million! That’s no small sum of change, but if you think about it that is a perishable prize.

But if we as Christian’s survive we will get a prize that is imperishable. ‘I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.’ 1 Cor. 3:12b-14

Another thing I can imagine is that when someone gets chosen to be one of the contestants on Survivor that they are filled with a sense of hope. Hope that they will be the one left standing at the end of the game.

Hope is something that all athletes and competitors live with – at the end of the day who would compete in a game if they believed they were ultimately going to lose? Watch the first episode of any reality TV game show and you’ll see that every single contestant believes they are going to win. And it doesn’t matter if the game show is mental or physical, any contestant will train hard and train long – they train, train, train, and why? So that they might have a serious chance of winning. They live with the hope that one day they will come away with the gold medal, or as in the case of a reality TV game show, the $1 million.

I remember once watching the summer Olympics and as I looked at the athletes I saw determination written all over their faces. some looked nervous, but there was hope in their eyes. Hope that after all the training and competitions they had to compete in to get this far they could now take their game to the next level and be the best in the world. In a sense, a true competitor will live to win.

God has written in his word that if we stand firm we will be saved. And I believe that if we live with that promise in mind every second, of every hour, of every day we will survive.

Moreover, if we want to become a true survivor and make it to the end we need to fix our eyes, ears, hearts and minds on the ultimate survivor… Jesus Christ. Then there is no doubt that each one of us will not only survive, but ultimately win!

Christian St John M.Div, BChM, ACS
February, 2009

Picture by RKL and the Survivor website

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