About a week and a half ago, the small town of Heyworth, Illinois had something exciting to celebrate. Our high school boys basketball team just kept winning games and had finally made it to the 1A State Championship Game. Obviously, this is HUGE for a town of less than 3000 people. It’s actually really cool to see the entire town get behind a cause, and that is exactly what happened that weekend. I wasn’t able to make it over to Peoria for the game, but it seemed like the rest of the town of Heyworth made the drive. Everyone wanted to show their support for these high school boys who had reached the climax of their season. I was lucky enough to be able to watch the game on tv!
Right around game time, I put Aletheia down for a nap and my buddy Jared came over to watch the game with me. We sat down and turned on the television…and our hopes for the Heyworth team fell through the floor. The other team was made up of players who seemed to dwarf our team. When they went over the starting lineups, our tallest player was listed at 6’4″ and the other team had 4 players in their own starting lineup that were that height or taller, including a center who was 7’0″ and forwards who were 6’10” and 6’7″ (if I remember correctly). They were huge!
The game began and it went the way I had expected it to. The other team ran out to a 19-2 lead and Heyworth was in trouble. Slowly, but surely, Heyworth worked their way back into the game and by the third quarter, actually took the lead for a minute or two. It was right around this time that I (and probably many other folks from Heyworth) began to think, “We could actually pull this off! How huge would this be?!” But reality quickly caught up. By the end of the game, we had lost by about 20 points.
Now here is where things get a little bit interesting. Everyone (myself included) was so proud of our boys. It was the same excitement that we felt towards our volleyball team when they won state just a few years ago! The entire town of Heyworth could not express just how much pride we felt towards the team. However, something began to happen that tends to rub me the wrong way. Facebook posts started showing up in which people would state that our team were still champions, even though we had lost the championship game. Now please hear me out, I get it. I understand that we show our support in every way to these young men and let them know that they accomplished something incredible. But at the end of the day, they weren’t champions. They were extremely close, but not quite there. And here’s the thing: that is perfectly fine.
Let’s bring in a quick thought from Scripture. In Philippians 3, Paul begins talking about a pretty difficult topic: confidence. He brings up the fact that a lot of people find confidence in their accomplishments, or things of the flesh. He recites quite a list of everything that he had accomplished up to the moment when Christ found him, and then closes his list by saying the following in verses 7-11:
But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith— that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.
Sometimes (scratch that and replace with oftentimes) we grow the most through our shortcomings. Paul realized that his entire list of accomplishments meant nothing compared to what Christ has offered. How will we react when everything comes crashing down, when we are not able to accomplish that which we have struggled so hard to accomplish? Unfortunately, David doesn’t always win the battle against the mighty Goliath. There are moments in our lives when we feel like the underdog and hope as much as possible that we will be able to overcome the odds. But when the chips fall, we have failed. Are we still champions? Nope. Does God still love us? Absolutely! Will God take those weaknesses and use them for his glory? You better believe it! These moments of weakness and failure should always be reminding us that we won’t always win and that at the end of the day, we require God’s grace much more than our own sense of accomplishment. How we react in our moments of failure could have a profound impact on our relationship with Christ.
May we be people who don’t give others a false sense of accomplishment. Instead, may we be folks who encourage and love in the midst of hardship. In my own life, I’ve never wanted to hear that everything is fine when I have messed up. Instead, I’ve wanted to hear that I’m still loved and valuable in the midst of my failures. Even though we may not always defeat the giants in our lives, God will still be faithful to love and care for us through our defeats. We won’t always have to be crowned the champion, because the true Champion is on our side.
-The Pastor
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