Sport Relief 2010

"The Lord is full of compassion", (The Bible). Aha! That's where humans and God differ: Some people have a lot of compassion but aren't full of it, some people have some compassion but need a lot more, and worst of all, some poor and mean-spirited individuals have hardly any.

In the UK we have an annual charity event called 'Sport Relief'. It has been featured on TV entertaining us with celebrities tackling heroic endurance feats. We've had comedians, pop singers, DJs, footballers and ordinary people doing what they can to support those who need some help. We may have felt that the unfit international comedian Jimmy Carr let the side down on the Million Pound Bike Ride from John O'Groats to Lands End but what he lost in peddle power he made up for in funny gags.

Another stand-up comedian and Hollywood actor, Eddie Izzard ran 43 marathons in 51 days completing a circular route which started in London and passed through Wales , Northern Ireland and Scotland before coming back to London . It was impressive and left me thinking that Eddie really is-hard. But in another way maybe Eddie is soft, soft hearted. On his route he stopped off to meet some of the Alzheimer's victims who he was helping, it was hard not to be moved by their plight and Eddie's efforts to support them. As he ran through Northern Ireland he was accompanied by two other runners who happened to be out that day for a run. Eddie asked them about their religion, one was a Catholic and the other a Protestant, "and here I am" said Eddie, "an Atheist." It left me thinking can a man with no belief in God be moved by God's compassion? We are, after all, told in the bible that we are made in God's image, somewhere in the recesses of our lives the tiny plant of compassion is trying to grow. The soil it's in may not be rich, selfishness and coldness may stop it from flourishing but it's there. If it dies we stop being human: Hell is not designed for humans, it's the residue of a human that ends up there, body and soul destroyed. Our human souls are very precious; we need to look after them because they can be neglected and as Jesus said some people even lose them. God is doing what he can to make us more like Jesus, whose compassion shone like a beacon in a sea of hardness.

Eddie had a difficult childhood, his mother died when he was six, he got moved around. As an adult he found him self with a need to wear women's clothes, he is honest and open about it even though it has got him into nasty fights. He is not homosexual but trying to deal with, as he puts it, "the cards I've been dealt". As well as his epic journey running throughout the UK , he is on another journey, as we all are. God has a sneaky way of reaching out to us, his love and compassion can stealthily grow in our hearts without us realising what's happening. They can get so big that when we turn a corner and find ourselves confronted by him, as we all are at some point in our lives, we automatically see him as a friend, ally, brother and father. We are ready to receive him and love him. It's then we start to learn some of God's other ways and lose our own odd and useless appendages. God invites us to join him running and to throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles and run with perseverance the race marked out for us.

Sports Relief 2010 have so far raised almost 30 million pounds for people who we need to help. It's good for those people who have a heart to help others; it's something that is close to God's heart. Taking part in Sports Relief also has the added bonus of helping us get fit, and God wants us to use the bodies he has given to us, we're not meant to sit all day long typing at a computer and eating cake, somehow I think God likes Sports Relief.

Paul Poulton