A few weeks ago I discovered the story behind the image below.

It involves Brazilian Olympic surfer Gabriel Medina, who scored a record 9.9 out of 10 surfing in the Olympics. Watch John Hilton III in the video below tell the story, it’s at about the 31:27 mark.

What a great example of giving the glory of a superb athletic moment to God!

It reminds me recently when one of my organist friends was complimented on her musical ability at church. She is amazing! She sings in a community choir, she leads our congregation choir, she plays the piano and the organ for our congregation singing, and maybe she plays other instruments I don’t know about. She’s always ready at a moment’s notice to sing or play or lead, without hesitation, even if she hasn’t practiced the song. After the compliment, she said, “Thank you! I’m so grateful for a mother who paid for my musical lessons.” In a way, Medina was saying the same thing: “Thank you! I’m so grateful for Christ who gave me everything, my body, my talents, my redemption from sin, and my opportunity to be here.” You can read a story about Medina here. Below is a screenshot of what he wrote about the photo on his Instagram page.

In case you can’t read it, it says, “I can do everything through him who strengthens me.” Philipians 4:13

I love this all so much! When we know that we are Christ’s because we have entered into a baptismal covenant relationship with Him, we know not just who we are, children of God, but we start to also know “whose we are,” meaning that we belong to Christ, because of covenants we have made in His name. Then we step into a whole new level of living. We can feel spiritual momentum helping us do things we didn’t know was possible, because truly we can do all things in His name. We start dying as to things of the flesh and become born again in Christ as His children of the covenant.

As the Book of Mormon Another Testament of Jesus Christ says in Mosiah 5:7:

“And now, because of the covenant which ye have made ye shall be called the children of Christ, his sons, and his daughters; for behold, this day he hath spiritually begotten you; for ye say that your hearts are changed through faith on his name; therefore, ye are born of him and have become his sons and his daughters.”

Being a covenant child of Christ doesn’t mean we are perfect. It doesn’t mean we will have a perfect life. We will still make mistakes and bad things will still happen, but because of this covenant, we will have increased help getting through these mistakes and bad things. We will have more joy. My friend Joyce talks about this whole new level of living over here. She calls living the covenant life “living the high life.”

President Nelson encouraged members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to think of themselves as 1. Children of God, 2. Children of the covenant, and 3. Disciples of Christ, in this talk over here, called “Choices for Eternity.”

Brother Hilton in the same video above shares a new song his neighbor April Hemphill wrote to help us remember these three core identities. It’s called “Child of God, Child of the Covenant, Disciple of Jesus Christ.”

You can get it here from Brother Hilton’s website. He says his brother sings this song every day with his family after family prayer. As he says, “What would that be like to grow up singing this song every day with your family?” I love to ponder that question. I’m sharing this song with my family to encourage us all to sing this every day.