Our Greatest Weakness …

Two weeks ago I watched with pride as my son was honoured to be the MVP at his football game. The head coach started the speech with: “Pound for pound, Isaiah was the toughest kid on the field today…” I was beaming. Yesterday however, he had a very different experience.

We played a team whose players looked old enough to be shaving at half time. They were bigger, faster and stronger. I have taught my son that you don’t complain about the opposition, you adjust. I learned there is a lot more to football than size – play to your strengths.

I watched yesterday as my son played with all the intensity his little body could muster. With tear filled eyes he walked off the field after the loss, quite frustrated that even despite his best efforts, they lost.

Life turns out.

There’s not much he can do about his 9-year-old frame and the genetics he inherited from his father standing at 5′ 10″. That game is in the books and he has two choices: Look ahead to next Saturday’s game or do what I call  ”complain and remain.”

“Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time.” – Thomas Jefferson

One thing that I am learning is that life turns out. In my arrogance I would prefer that life, people and all things touching my world would turn out a certain way. I am just simply not that powerful.  This is of course is not to suggest that I throw vision and commitment to the wind and live with a cynical sense of fatalism… “whatever happens, happens.” That is not a very empowering way to live. Our lives are what we choose to make them. (Deut 30:19)

Indeed, life turns out. We are not gods, though many would argue that.  Whether it be disease, economic challenge, relational breakdowns or natural disasters, we are in fact in need of God as opposed to living under the notion we are god.

Maybe life just turned out for you. Get up one more time. (Psalm 46:10)