Athletics can be a wonderful laboratory through which to learn something of man's nature as the reflection of God. One's performance is affected positively as one's thought is spiritualized and disciplined by Christ, Truth. And much of what is learned about the nature of God and man through athletics, when approached from a Christianly scientific basis, can be readily applied to other aspects of living.
Then, how should one pray about athletics? How is one to judge what really is progress and improvement? Should one "pray" asking God for rewards of slam-dunks, home runs, or double twisting, double backflips? Should a person pray that his team wins or that he is awarded a particular position?
Obviously it would be a mistake to think one can use God and Christian Science to produce somehow material super athletes with bigger muscles, super cardiovascular systems, and so on. Christian Science does not work that way. God does not express Himself as matter or physicality, for God is infinite Spirit. The reflection of God, therefore, expresses the substance of Spirit. So, even though the physical senses support the notion that people are solely organic, the truth is that God's creation, including man, is wholly spiritual. To become more and more acquainted with the spiritual facts of being begins to free us from mental and physical limitations. In the light of Christian Science, a more enlightened goal for athletics is, step by step, to prove for ourselves that man is spiritual and reflects God—omnipotent, unlimited, infinite Spirit —exclusively. A progressive role for the athlete is to be, in some measure, a witness of God's nature.
