I love football! I went to two games this weekend and managed to sneak in another during the commercial breaks of a Lifetime movie and once the movie was over. Friday night's game was arguably one of the most important regular season games for the football team of my alma mater where I also teach and have two nephews on the team. The first half was miserable. Our team looked like a completely different team than the one that had rolled over all, but one team in the preceding weeks. Then, just before halftime, the ball was thrown to my oldest nephew and he got a much-needed first down that led to a touchdown before the half.
After our team got within two points of the opposing team in the fourth quarter and blocked a field goal to give themselves a chance for the win, my nephew made two more spectacular catches to get the team within field goal range with 18 seconds on the clock. However, the kicker had missed two field goals that night, so the offense decided to go for the touchdown. The offensive line did their best blocking of the night, the quarterback dropped back, my nephew waited for the ball to go in for the winning score, but the QB threw the ball towards a receiver that wasn't expecting the ball and the defense intercepted it. They lost a district game, making the road to the playoffs more difficult, but not impossible. Saturday night, I saw that my team was winning, so I watched my movie and then turned back to the game to watch the fourth quarter. The opposing team gave a slight scare, but once they were off of the field with little time remaining, I figrure the game was over and my team had won, so I turned the TV off and went to bed. I woke up the next morning to find out that they lost by one point. Yesterday, I went to an NFL game. My team seemed to be on the right track for the first half, but they got killed in the second half and suffered an embarassing loss. It was not a great football weekend for my teams. Last year, while actor Charlie Sheen was doing some really odd and self-destructive acts, he was known to say the phrase, "Winning!" which was a contradiction to what he was actually doing. After seeing these games, I began to think today, is there any way that an apparent loss could be a win? Then, as I was reading this morning I saw several verses that assured me that losing down here is not what matters; what matters is what we gain when we lose. Romans 8:8-9 (MSG) says, "Anyone completely absorbed in self ignores God, ends up thinking more about self than God. That person ignores who God is and what he is doing. And God isn’t pleased at being ignored. But if God himself has taken up residence in your life, you can hardly be thinking more of yourself than of him." When we lose ourselves and focus on God, although the world might not see the powerful acts of God that are going on, our lives will be infinitely better. When we fully surrender and submit, giving complete control to God, that is a win! We can see life change for the better, whichis not to say that there will not be challenges, but in the end, we win! Last year, our high school was defeated in the regular season by the same team they lost to on Friday, but when they got to the playoffs, they beat that same team to advance to the state final four. Life on earth is the regular season. We are going to take some losses. Some days, those losses are not our fault; they are caused by others not giving us the chances to win. Other losses are near misses because we were so close to the win, but we did not play through the end. Sometimes we lose because we just plain stink at life. But, this life on earth is the regular season and heaven is our championship. If we can make it through the tough times down here with our focus on God and His Spirit in our hearts, confessing Jesus Christ as our Lord and Saviour, we can turn losing into winning! Ms. EV In tomorrow's blog, I will continue this subject with more wisdom from Romans 8
0 Comments
Your comment will be posted after it is approved.
Leave a Reply. |
About Ms. EVWhen you have elevated values, it is not about being snobby; it is about living victoriously! Archives
March 2016
Categories
All
Copyright Notice© Toni L. Wortherly and Ms. EV's Blog, 2012. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Toni Wortherly and Ms. EV's Blog with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.
Ms. EV's Blog by Toni L. Wortherly is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. |