The Big Defeat

Ouch! That smarts. Some days it is clear on the morning after that the team would have been better off to not show up for the game. Yesterday, one of the World Cup semifinals ended in humiliating defeat for the home team. Nebraska fans have suffered similar defeats in the past, as have most any team with passionate fans. The big defeat hurts in a way we may not be able to explain. After all, I or you was not the one out on the field when the team lost so badly. Why do we tend to take such defeats so personally? Well, it may be that we are bigger than ourselves. We vicariously become members of the team. After that, we are on for the long ride, sometimes of victory and other times we suffer the big defeat. Some teams have never won the big championship game. Others are doomed to a kind of forever mediocrity, but all teams have their fans along for the journey. Some fans are proud of their faithfulness to the team. Other fans are only there when the team does well. Then we have that other sort of team, you know, the one you are on now.

The season is not over, yet the team owner said that he won the championship. Eh? Yes, we read the verse not very long ago, John 16:33. Jesus said, "...Be of good cheer, for I have overcome the world." Does the world look overcome to you and me? No, not when such terrible defeats come to us in this life. We pray for the company to do well, and it fails into bankruptcy. We pray for the young couple to have a long and happy marriage, and it falls apart in a bitter divorce. We thank God for the good job we have held for years, and then the company gives us the boot. We may watch a beloved parent fall into terrible illness from which he or she does not recover. Young men and women are lost to us in accidents, wars, or sometimes for seemingly no reason at all. Yet, Jesus said that He had overcome the world. How is this possible? What does our Lord see that we do not? Like maybe eternity, perhaps? However, Jesus did not say that He would overcome, He said, "I have overcome".

I wonder, maybe those things we see as defeats are in fact carefully managed trials like God did with Job. It may very well be that we are wrong when we think of some event or season as a loss, when in fact it was a mere training exercise for eternity with Christ.

Have a better day with Jesus,
Bucky