Are you winning at life?

Are you winning at life?

I don’t have a very competitive spirit. At all. My husband accuses me of being a socialist since I grew up in Sweden. I want everything to be fair and equal. I want everybody to win. I’m not particularly interested in competitive sports. I just want everybody to have fun and get along. Everybody deserves a medal as long as they did their best, right? For years my mantra has been “It’s not a competition” and “We have to share”, since I work with preschool kids. But lately I’ve been challenged to think a little more aggressively. Not aggressive towards people, but in life. We are in a war after all. There are forces in the universe trying to take us out and push us down. Survival mode is not enough if we want to make a difference in this world. For years I was living in survival mode and I felt like I was just keeping my head over the surface in the ocean of life.

The theme of offense has been a big one in my life. I have watched offense take a lot of people out. They were doing great, running full speed, but then they got offended over something and threw in the towel, gave up hope, maybe even gave up their faith. I was in that spot myself a few years ago, feeling very hopeless and defeated. The Bible talks about offense like a bitter root that starts growing and then infiltrates many (Hebr 12). It starts like something small, but it takes root under the surface and is like poison that spreads out and sucks life and joy out of a person. It even spreads to the surroundings. We can call it offense, unforgiveness, bitterness, disappointment, crushed dreams or disillusionment. The effects are the same.

I had a disillusioned friend in my twenties and he said that if you are disillusioned it only means that what you believed in was just an illusion. I didn’t like the sound of that at the moment but I’ve been pondering it for 20 some years now and I believe he was right. Things are not what they seem. There is always a bigger picture. Deus semper Maior. God is always greater! We can never box Him in. Just when we think we have Him figured out, He will come around a corner, from a different angle and reveal Himself in a different way. It doesn’t make Him less true, it just pulls us deeper into the mystery of His love.

The mysteries of American football has surprisingly enough pulled on my heart’s strings lately as I’ve been pondering the word offense. In the World of Sports offense gets a totally new meaning. We want to be on the offensive line, darting against the enemy, not rolling around on the field being offended and licking our wounds (like they do in soccer, especially the European League). Ain’t nobody got time for that. The show must go on. Although it’s not a show, it’s a real war and the outcome is death or life. And our enemy is not human. Not any human being. Our enemy is negative energy, evil, darkness, the devil, lies, deception, spiritual forces that work against us. Are you winning? If not, join the winner. He’s always winning. Every time.