Those who have read much of my writing and or listened to me preach often probably know that I enjoy and follow sports. I don't watch much in order to spare my wife, who is most certainly not a sports fan, but I keep up with the scores, news and highlights via various apps and social media. My favorite app is Onside Sports, a sports wagering app. My favorite game is not Candy Crush r Angry Birds or even Call Of Duty. It's betting on sports.
My financial situation is such that to wager real money, even pennies per game, would be irresponsible. But the app turns wagering into a game that is free to play, let's you compete against yourself and others and uses virtual units to keep track of your record, wins and losses, etc. Losing doesn't cost anything. Winning doesn't really mean anything. Yet, I take it pretty seriously, as my wife can attest. This morning as I put on my glasses I picked up my phone and headed for the coffee pot. I woke my phone up so that I could turn the volume back on, not the least concerned with what happened as I lay in bed last night. I knew. I was wrong though. As I activated the volume I saw the notification Parley Score loss.
I scrolled down through the other notifications from Facebook and Twitter until I saw what I was looking for. There were two basketball games in progress last night when I went to bed that were both on my five game parlay. Both teams that I had picked were winning and controlling their respective games in the final quarter when I turned the volume down and put the phone up for the night. What happened? I went to bed confident that I would finish the day in the green, meaning I won more than loss, and woke to see the results in the red. How had the Clippers blown that lead?
That's what I thought, but the Clippers didn't blow anything. They won. The Golden State Warriors fell in overtime and lost the game I was most sure would be a win for me. A lot of fans felt the same I am sure. A headline I read this morning asked if the Warriors were running out of gas. They had been looking like they were easily going to beat the record for most wins in a season this year, and now that looks unlikely, although not impossible. I haven't seen anything crediting Minnesota for stepping up and winning. Everything is about Golden State losing.
Times like that I am very grateful that I don't wager money. The loss hurt my pride a little. It put me in the hole for the day, barely, but it didn't really cost me anything. I had gone to bed sure of the outcome, confident the Warriors would win. They didn't. Things like that happen.
Sure things fall short sometimes. Easy wins can turn into defeats when a person or team does better than anyone thought they could or a player or team does worse than they should have or just because of a fluke mishap. I'm just as bad. No matter how much knowledge and understanding I have, no matter how determined, no matter how much I practice and prepare, as I go through my days I find that I choke and lose at times when losing shouldn't even be a possibility.
I can be cruising along and suddenly without warning fail to live up to the beliefs and spiritual principles that govern my life and protect my freedom. I can think that everything is fine and then find that without even realizing it I have taken back my will, failed to submit to God's will and now find that when it came time to show His light and love I have behaved selfishly or gotten angry over something that doesn't really matter in the eternal scheme of things or ignored someone's need and the chance to be of service or......
There is only One who never fails and never falls short. No matter what else happens, God can always be counted on. When we go to sleep seeing God in control, we wake to find that He still is. He will never disappoint us. He may not, will not, always do what we want Him to in the way that we want Him to, but the reason we can lean on Him is that He is always faithful to do and be all that we need. We can rely on His strength and power instead of our own, because His is the only power that can never be surprised, overcome or fall short.
God's faithfulness is the only sure thing we can rely on. Today, let us not cruise along on our ability, but let us remember to surrender to Him and let His power take us through the day. With Him and by His grace we don't ever have to lose. Even the greatest warriors sometimes lose when they shouldn't. but God never fails.
April 6 2016.
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