You know it is tragic to see a person [grow, excel] in one area and not grow in another. Some of you remember reading about Babe Didrikson Zaharias, perhaps the greatest woman athlete ever to live in America. In 1932 she won gold medals in the Olympics in the hurdles and in the javelin throw. She was not only a great track star, but she was an All-American twice as a basketball player. She was an outstanding swimmer. She didn’t play golf until she was grown. But in 10 short years after she took up golf, she won 17 major tournaments. In 1953 they discovered that Babe had cancer. So she had surgery and immediately upon dismal after surgery and treatment she left the hospital and went to Florida and played in the Tampa Bay Classic Golf Tournament.
She wasn’t running away. Shortly before she died she was interviewed by the man who was later to write the biography of her life. So, they talked about a lot of things—childhood and her sport’s activities, her relationships in life and eventually they got around to talking about religion. She said, “When I was just a child I learned some prayers. And though you wouldn’t call me a churchgoing Christian, all of my life I have continued to say those prayers I learned as a child.” Now that may sound sweet to you but there is something tragic in it to me. Here is a woman who has developed athletic skills to the height. She had become a gold medal winner in the Olympics. She had become a champion golfer. She had developed her athletic ability as high as a person could possibly go and she was still saying the prayers of a little child. Can you imagine that athletic genius kneeling by her bed at night saying, “Now I lay me down to sleep. I pray the lord my soul to keep”?
It would be tragic for a person to grow physically and intellectually and economically and socially and never to grow and mature spiritually.