Skip to main content

Greater Than Gold





Greater Than Gold: From Olympic Heartbreak to Ultimate Redemption by David Boudia with Tim Ellsworth

The Rio Olympics in the summer of 2016 were an exhilarating time for athletes from around the globe, not least of which were the US Olympic diving team.  We only get a small snapshot of the training of these dedicated athletes. David Boudia, 10m platform diver and winner of the gold medal in London tells his story of heartbreak and victory in his compelling book, Greater Than Gold.  In its pages, Greater Than Gold takes us inside the competitive spirit of David, his quest to become better in his diving, but also looks at his struggles with drinking, his encounter with a teacher who loved him enough to share the good news with him, and his life after believing in Jesus Christ.

One of the humbling and gracious parts of the book was David’s memory of his devoted family, and how they carried his dream with him.  David writes, “On those days, she’d pick me up at school at two in the afternoon, drive an hour to practice, stat there with me for about four hours, and then drive an hour home.  That was six hours of her day that she wasn’t spending at home with me sisters or my dad.  Mom really had to give up a lot of her time for to me to train, and I can’t tell you how grateful I am for her efforts (24).”  His family really sacrificed for his Olympic dreams to come true and I was glad to see that David mentioned the support he got from them.

The real joy in the story comes not from the embrace of Olympic gold at London, nor the many other medals that David won in his platform diving, but the joy he found in his Savior.  Through the witness and friendship of his coach, Adam and his wife Kimiko, David saw the road that his self-centered life was leading.  He writes, “God’s grace was telling me, through the words of Adam and Kimiko and the scriptures they shared with me, that my insistence on being God was creating my misery (87).”  From this point on, David turned to the Lord, got involved in discipleship, and really focused his life on the Lord, but this didn’t keep him from falling flat on his face.

It was David’s honesty that made me see that believers often sugarcoat their lives and even their sin.  In David’s memory, the way he treated his future bride Sonnie, was not in many ways the way a man should pursue a woman toward marriage.  Yet, he was willing to grow in faith and in maturity through many struggles, not willing to let go of her in the end.  This persevering attitude was something that he learned through dive after dive, and after many people called him to live a life of faithfulness to God.


Many thanks to BookLook Bloggers and Thomas Nelson for the copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Saving Casper

Saving Casper: A Christian and an Atheist Talk about Why We Need to Change the Conversion Conversation by Jim Henderson and Matt Casper http://www.amazon.com/Saving-Casper-Christian-Conversion-Conversation/dp/1414364881 Many readers will quickly know the authors of this book from their previous release Jim and Casper Go to Church.  Jim and Matt’s new book entitled Saving Casper focuses on the way we talk about conversion in the church and the devastating ways we have pushed away atheists and other non-believers by our posture.  Both Jim and Matt traversed the national landscape, meeting in churches and asking hard questions about faith, conversion, and life. The basic premise of the book and travel is laid out here in their words, “Part of what Casper and I are trying to achieve when we speak to a group of Christians is to help people move a little bit on their “judgment meter.”  This capacity, while intellectually and often theologically uncomfortable,...
Post a Comment
Read more

Essential Christian Doctrine

  Essential Christian Doctrine , General Editor John MacArthur Pastor John MacArthur has for years been teaching the Word of God in both pulpit ministry, books, and conferences with an aim to displaying God’s revelation to his listeners in a winsome and foundational manner.  This new book, Essential Christian Doctrine takes an entire life of teaching and preaching and encapsulates the main contours of the Christian faith for its readers.  John in a systematic way highlights the most necessary teachings from Scripture including God’s Word, the Trinity, while also including sections on Man and the Future. One of the most helpful ways the authors bring to light biblical truth and theology is the way in which they group together particular themes.  In the section on the Holy Spirit, instead of a complex discussion of personhood, word pictures of the Holy Spirit are introduced in a discernible and profitable manner.  The metaphors for the Holy Spirit include fir...
Post a Comment
Read more

God's Grace for All of Life

The Romance of Grace by Jim McNeely III To be honest, when I received this book in the mail I had visions of what it might be like with a title like, ‘The Romance of Grace.’  The emotional rollercoaster and one-sided perspective on how our emotions fuel our faith was my presumption about the book, but this was the furthest thing from the truth as I started reading.  The Romance of Grace by Pastor Jim McNeely III is a careful look at the movements of grace in the way God pursues us with his love and his desire to get us to love him back.  McNeely writes, “We are entering a cosmic romance with a passionate lover, and He is interested in our heart’s truest desire.  His deepest objective isn’t to make us more moral; it is to get us to love Him back.  Virtue is the fruit, not the root” (18).  Why is this helpful?  For one thing, beginning with God’s initiating grace frees us from starting out on the wrong foot in the way we tell the story and...
2 comments
Read more